Completed PhDs and Research Projects

The concept of Historically Informed Performance Practice (HIPP) plays a prominent role in contemporary music scene. While initially focused on Early Music, this approach is now increasingly applied to music from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Central to HIPP is the pursuit of historically aware performances, a practice that remains relatively uncommon in the field of saxophone music. This doctoral research aims to explore this underexplored area by focusing on the historically informed performance practice of the world’s first saxophone school, the Brussels Saxophone Class (1867-1904).

This research focuses on gesture and its extraction from a performer's perspective, in the works for solo guitar.s by the French-Lebanese composer and visual artist Zad Moultaka (*1967, Lebanon). Based on the history of gesture and various currents of thought surrounding it since the 1930s, and on its expansion until the 2020s with the work of the IRCAM in France in particular, the author describes the gesture from a performer's perspective. He thus highlights the notion of an analytic-emotional gesture, described as an inner gesture, which becomes external by the means of an instrumental gesture and of a technological gesture. Once the milestones of thought on gesture have been highlighted, the author demonstrates its extraction as a performer, by looking at two works for guitar by Zad Moultaka: Calvario for guitar and electronics, and Kahraba for electric guitar and electroacoustics. To do this, the author first puts his thoughts on gesture into perspective with the work of the composer and visual artist. He explores how Moultaka creates new music forms by his interest in primitive rituals, metaphysical symbolism, sound, time, and visual elements. These elements, among others to be explored in the thesis, become essential in the birth of the analytic-emotional gesture, as well as, by extension, in the birth of the instrumental gesture, which expands by the mean of extended techniques. At last, they are essential in the birth of the technological gesture which becomes at some points an augmented instrument. The thesis demonstrates, through Zad Moultaka’s musical and visual inspirations, that gesture is an extractible matter for the performer. To extend beyond the scope of his written study, the author has produced several videos, and conceived a performance concert as a climax of his research, where Moultaka's works for guitar.s and a premiere of the composer's new piece Ordo ab Chao will be presented (1 April 2021).

The performing and conducting of the chamber opera Julie of Philippe Boesmans combined with Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda of Claudio Monteverdi in an adaptation of Frederik Neyrinck were the starting point of the PhD in the Arts of Bart Bouckaert. His research was focused on the correction of the published score of Philippe Boesmans that contained quite some inaccuracies. Bart Bouckaert compared every note with every note, each instruction with each instruction, clarified, corrected and added. All of this was processed in a revised score, in close consultation with the composer. The written part of this Phd in the Arts can be considered as a reflection of experiences, ideas and opinions that were gained before, during and after this production and trestles the main part of this PhD in the Arts: the rehearsal and creation process of a revised score.

Binnen jazz wordt het gebruik van de strijkstok voor improvisatie als een verrijkende techniek beschouwd voor het ontwikkelen van een instrument-eigen idioom op de contrabas. Doorheen de geschiedenis hebben veel contrabassisten een eigen benadering van het boogspel ontwikkeld, maar het ontbreken van specifiek materiaal gewijd aan arco improvisatie binnen geïmproviseerde jazz en andere niet-klassieke genres maakt dat deze praktijk grotendeels onderbenut blijft. Dit doctoraatsonderzoek van Filippe Caporali heeft als doel om vanuit de artistieke praktijk een strijkmethode voor contrabas te ontwikkelen die elementen uit jazz en westerse klassieke muziek combineert, met een focus op improvisatie. De verschillende manier van fraseren, het specifieke vocabularium en timbre, de behoefte aan flexibiliteit om “on the spot” te componeren en spontaan te interageren creëert inherente problemen waarvoor de tools aangereikt in de jazz- en klassieke muziekopleiding niet altijd volstaan.
Om deze tools te kunnen aanpassen en ontwikkelen, wil dit onderzoek beide tradities combineren door de gemeenschappelijke kenmerken als vertrekpunt te nemen. Op basis van bestaande pedagogische methodes en van de muziektheoretische analyse van de arcostijl van enkele van de meest representatieve jazzcontrabassisten zullen nieuwe oefeningen worden ontwikkeld. Daarnaast zullen deze stilismen geïntegreerd worden in de dagelijkse spelpraktijk van de onderzoeker teneinde de validiteit van dit onderzoek in de praktijk te duiden.

Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) was an innovative composer who, through a significant evolution in his musical language, found a way to free himself from the constraints of tonal music and transitioned to an uninhibited form of musical creation. Two connected elements that accelerated this transformation were his developing mysticism and his perception of color as the visual counterpart of sound, brought about by either synesthesia or conscious artistic intent. In this PhD research by Nuno Cernadas, Scriabin’s color and sound symbiosis and his relationship to mystical philosophy, as in Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (Op. 60), will be studied in order to apply these ideas to the creation of an original multisensory live concept for the performance of his ten piano sonatas. The research will focus on the mystical philosophies that influenced Scriabin, their historical and cultural significance in early twentieth-century Europe, and their role in the development of Scriabin’s style. The researcher will undertake an in-depth study of Prometheus, his first attempt to produce a multisensory work of art blending color and music in a transfigurative masterpiece. Musical interpretation and performance practice are equally central. Through the synaesthetic exploration of Scriabin’s ten piano sonatas, this project will create a musical and visual experience that follows and continues the visionary intentions of the composer.

The cornetto is an instrument well established in the world of early music. For example, it is regularly heard at prestigious festivals and concert halls. The challenge, therefore, does not lie in rediscovering a forgotten instrument. However, historical playing practices and traditions have only exceptionally influenced current cornetto performance practices. This PhD research by Lambert Colson focuses on a particular member of the cornetto family: the mute cornetto. By studying the strong local traditions in a specific period, a specific repertoire will be linked to historical musicians and preserved instruments. Thus, modern facsimiles of some historical cornetti will be made, studied and played. The first part of the research will be devoted to the Court of Kassel in the time of Moritz van Hessen-Kassel (1592–1627) and will explore the repertoire of the cornetti mutti as well as the Kasseler Zinken preserved in Leipzig. One of these instruments bears the mark of Georg Graumann, an acclaimed cornettist active at the Kassel court. For the second part of the research, the focus shifts to sixteenth-century Verona and the instruments as well as the scores preserved in the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona.

This research project assesses new ways to advance in practice and performance of demanding contemporary percussion music. In my career as a contemporary percussionist I encountered the emerging problems posed by the existing contemporary repertoire and the fact that some students and performers find the threshold to tackle some of these magnificent pieces too high. The aim of this research project is to lower this threshold for percussionists to deal with major pieces of the contemporary repertoire by cataloguing practical experience and knowledge into a new working method and to attract more players to this particular repertoire. The choice of the repertoire for this research project was intuitive: all of the pieces presented are pieces that were important in my personal performing career and that triggered new esthetics, interests, or ways of playing for me. The particular lack of study material and documented know-how, as well as the often problematic scores and electronics in the existing repertoire, demanded a very practical approach to this research. Although the choice of the pieces was intuitive, I believe that the results that came out of this thesis are generic: the approach and the tools that were applied to the researched pieces can be adapted to almost all contemporary repertoire for all instruments. The methodology started with an analysis and inventory of the main problems presented within the contemporary percussion repertoire. This was furthered with solutions developed in cooperation with the respective composers, musicologists, and researchers who specialized in the respective pieces. These solutions were then brought to practice by means of recordings, lecture-recitals and performances. An improved learning strategy was developed through an experimental approach in close collaboration with the percussion classes of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, KASK Conservatorium (Gent), Conservatorium van Amsterdam, ArtEZ Hogeschool (Arnhem, Enschede and Zwolle), and Hochschule für Musik Detmold.
The end result is a ‘Thesaurus’ for contemporary percussion: concerts, recordings, lecture- recitals and an online web platform that was developed in collaboration with Vincent Caers: “Living Scores Learn”. This platform contains all the theoretical and practical output of the research project: analysis of the pieces, annotated scores, click-tracks and practical playing solutions.

Joseph Jongen was born in 1873 and died in 1953 at age 70. He is generally considered as one of the most prominent Belgian composers after César Franck.  Particularly known for his organ and chamber music works, he also composed more than fifty art songs. The complete set of songs encompasses a wide scope of styles, from strophic romances to impressionist or Straussian-like songs, setting to music texts by various poets and writers -  some famous ones such as Baudelaire, Hellens or Verhaeren, or others with whom he was acquainted. Not only more than one third of the songs has never been published nor recorded, in addition the remaining two thirds are very seldom heard. I therefore decided to dedicate a doctoral research on the analysis and interpretation of these songs.  On the one hand, it will bring back to life an unjustly forgotten part of Jongen’s work and encourage young singers to perform his music, and on the other hand it will help me to refine my methodology as an interpreter in approaching a new repertoire.

The doctoral research, conducted by Jan De Winne, will address both the creative aspects of copying eighteenth-century flutes and the choices a musician makes when performing a concert in the spirit of Historical Informed Performance Practice (HIPP). Two case studies of flutes built by Johann Joachim Quantz and Carlo Palanca are central to this research. Starting from the artisanal details of the instrument maker, a more complex question of authenticity in the production and recreation of historical instruments will be developed, as well as an extrapolation of that problem from the perspective of a performer.

Playing and rediscovering the early music repertoire up to the late eighteenth century raises many questions and problems. One of the main challenges is the search for and shaping of the sound of the instrument. In illustrations of lutenists from the seventeenth century, one can observe a particular posture of the hands that one rarely, if ever, sees on stage today. This research aims to investigate the possible sound of the lute from a historically informed practice through an in-depth iconographic analysis, with a particular focus on paintings of French lutenists in the seventeenth century, and from the study of various related descriptions from lute books and treatises. By applying all the parameters we can extract from the various primary sources, a specific sound of the instrument will be formed, paving the way for further research on this topic. This research aims to be a practical approach to the performance practice of this music on the eleven-course lute, and will be documented in the form of 3 CDs of music by Vieux Gaultier, Charles Mouton, and Gallot d’Angers.

A performance is maybe the only art-form that emerges directly from the dimension of passing time. Probably this is the source of a performance’s potential: it is made out of burnt moments and whatever remains belongs solely to memory. Like a sculptor who chisels a sculpture with clay, the performer chisels an interpretation with passing time-moments. What happens when we observe a performance? Experimentation in quantum mechanics proved that observer and observed are linked into a quantum dependency, where the observer is visually perturbing, influencing and defining the state of the observed system. By taking a look at the etymology of the Greek passive verb meaning ‘to be projected’, (‘προ-βάλλομαι’ in Greek), one finds out that it is a synthesis of the prefix προ- and the verb ‘βάλλομαι’, literally meaning to be hit, affected, perturbed, influenced, attacked. This verb, confirming the quantum mechanics observer’s paradox, implies that being observed means receiving the energy by an observer, almost in the shape of an attack. Already the concept of theatre reveals this visual-observing dependency between performer and spectator. Jacques Lacarrière in his book “The Greek Summer” noticed that the word theatre comes from the verb “theomai”, meaning to see and to be seen and that it cannot be by chance that the ancient theater architecture, “expressed even by the soil and the stones”, resembles the image of an Eye. The spectator’s gaze can be considered to integrate a basic mechanism with which we are equipped in order to navigate in life, shape our understanding of the world in a meaningful way, exert the notion of identity. Therefore, what happens when we observe, or when we are observed and how the pure observation of a performing body may become self-reflection on a stranger’s art? And, what lies behind our capacity to create icons out of images?

While continuously making an effort to improve performance quality, performing musicians don’t cease to challenge their own physical and artistic possibilities.  Two different approaches are widely spread: the “artistic approach”, often accused to lack uniformity and objectivity, and to be trial and error based, is an individual oriented method focusing on the whole playing apparatus with conclusions formulated in a personal terminology.  The “scientific approach”, often accused to have little applicability in a practical context, focuses on small segments of the playing apparatus studied under controlled laboratory conditions.  During preliminary research, we tried in cooperation between scientists and artists to develop an observation method unifying these two essentially complementary approaches.  Although looking very promising, due to technical limitations these observations rendered no really usable results so far.  By focusing on different aspects of the playing apparatus in a four-stage research process, this project aims to fill the gap and to develop a new approach, which should be capable of making recent discoveries from positive sciences usable for artistic performance, not only on saxophone, but by extension other wind instruments too.

During 1920s and ‘30s the guitar underwent a renaissance in Spain, which brought with it the creation of modernist repertoire written for guitarists Miguel Llobet, Andrés Segovia, Regino Sáinz de la Maza, and Emilio Pujol. This PhD project presents my historically inspired performance of this repertoire. It  focuses on canonical works by such giants as Manuel de Falla, as well as a wealth of music that only recently resurfaced after long being buried in the turmoil of the Francoist regime. To develop such a practice, I conducted a critical experimental analysis of the guitar practice that existed in Spain from the late 19th to the middle of the 20th century. This practice was at the time commonly referred to as the “Tárrega school,” after the romantic Spanish composer and performer Francisco Tárrega. It has been theoretically analysed by other scholars. However, I am the first to document an analysis that is grounded as much in experimentation on gut-strung instruments from the period, as it is in the investigation of methods, recordings, and scores. Through performance practice, I mediated the findings of my experimental analysis with the stylistic context of the modernist repertoire that is the focus of this investigation. In this mediation I found historically informed solutions to two important and novel quandaries. I respected the challenge to romanticism put forth by Spanish modernist composers of the interwar period, who wrote for the guitar but did not play the instrument. However, I did so without uprooting my practice from the romantic Tárrega school that was prevalent amongst the guitarists who performed classical repertoire at the time. In addition, I developed a practice that accommodates the marked influence flamenco had on Spanish guitar repertoire from the interwar period. To this end I balanced the inclusion of period-appropriate flamenco techniques with the acknowledgement of the role of prominent Tárrega school performers in the creative process.

My PhD-dissertation describes the process of an elaborated intermedial method for intermedia art. The initial question within this intermedial research is how time art can be 'translated' from one medium to another. The chosen media 'trains' and 'phosphorescence' are not only used as a source of inspiration but also as a source of parametric information for the development of intermedial relations. Common elements, developed transformations and media-related concepts related to contemporary composition, trains and phosphorescence, were elaborated in different artistic creations: compositions, graphic scores, audio fragments, texts, poems and videos. All created artistic output (compositions, graphic scores, videos, images, poems and texts) can be found on the web page https://p-trains-astrinphosphora.be/. This thesis is about the research (PhD) in the arts entitled "P - TRAINS (Astrin Phosphora)".

Geïnformeerd door ruim dertig jaar onderzoek naar en speelervaring met het concept “ritme” in diverse culturele, sociale, geografische, filosofische contexten, alsook met het zoeken naar manieren om een betere kennis van ritme te ontwikkelen en een universele toegang tot de verschillende zijtakken ervan te bieden, streeft Stéphane Galland ernaar om de talrijke elementen die in de loop der jaren ontdekt werden in diens muziekpraktijk verder te verdiepen. Galland kan bogen op samenwerkingen met enkele van de belangrijkste ritmemeesters uit verschillende tradities, zoals Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman uit India, Doudou N’Diaye Rose uit Afrika, Misirli Ahmet uit Turkije, het trio Chemirani uit Iran, alsook tal van andere musici uit onder andere Bulgarije, Egypte, Syrië, Griekenland en de Verenigde Staten.
Dankzij diens dubbele vorming als klassieke percussionist en jazzdrummer alsook door diens speelervaring in allerlei muzikale contexten (bv. jazz, hedendaagse muziek, funk, niet-westerse muziek), heeft Galland idiomatische tools kunnen ontwikkelen om elke idee achter elke specifieke ritmische benadering te decoderen met als expliciete doel om de kennis over hoe verschillende ritmische benaderingen en visies te integreren over te dragen aan collega-artiesten. Deze uitgebreide, voortdurende muzikale en interculturele ervaring heeft hem geholpen te begrijpen welke elementen toelaten om van één ritmische wereld naar een andere te gaan, van één gedachte naar een andere, van één gevoel naar een ander en als dusdanig de gemeenschappelijke wortels te ontdekken van al deze ritmische zijtakken.

The research carried out by Peter Holman and Rodolfo Baroncini in the 1990s has made it possible to recover from the oblivion of history the Compagnie di violini – ensembles of three to six instruments from the violin family. In the Sixteenth Century, these groups of violini were comprised of professional instrumentalists assembled into guilds and took part in many festive, secular and religious activities. From the 1530s, and up to the 1580-90s, every town in Northern Italy had at least one violin ensemble, which was invited to play at nobles’ receptions, princes’ balls, meetings and political negotiations between influential figures. The term Sonadori, which I have chosen for the ensemble I created for my artistic doctoral performance, finds its origins in Venice where the confraternities ran and provided for groups of singers and instrumentalists on a permanent basis. In order to re-create the dulcet tones described in accounts of festivities, which were nevertheless sufficiently powerful to be heard at the other end of a ballroom, the musician of the ensemble and I have worked with several stringed-instrument makers on reconstructing new Renaissance instruments.

Historically, the conventional understanding of the classical pianist was almost exclusively confined to playing on the keyboard. This conception has been expanded and challenged in recent years with the emergence of a new repertoire that has expanded piano practice, transforming the pianist into a multi-skilled instrumentalist. This expansion has taken a number of directions, including special instrumental techniques focussing on other aspects of the instrument (e.g. strings, frame, pedals, body); work engaging technology with electronics (fixed medium or live) and computer; works that involve spoken and theatrical components; and works that involve dance like physical movement. These new approaches raise numerous issues, questions and challenges for the musician that have deeply transformed piano performance practice, not least that such hybrid works often draw attention to the music making body. The seminal piece that reflects this new approach is Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 1959/60 “Kontakte” duo for piano and percussion with electronic sounds, in which the pianist also plays percussion. The aim of this practise-based research is to enhance understanding of performance practice of works engaging a new conception of the pianist performer within the field of new music supported by (1) investigating the creative motivations behind composers making such work; and (2) analysing the compositions themselves. The findings from each of these areas will be assimilated to form a broader picture. The research will engage existing compositions that reflect these issues and a series of newly commissioned works in order to follow the live creative process step by step.

What would be the concept of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century violin virtuosity? Does our current understanding of virtuosity connect to this concept or rather to the nineteenth-century idea of effortless speed? This project takes these questions as the starting point for an investigation into the (perhaps) lost aspect of meaningful virtuosity that serves the dramatic dimension of a composition rather than acting as an entertaining form of entertainment. In this regard, the researcher focuses on some of the first Italian violin virtuosos, who were not only appreciated instrumentalists but also distinguished pedagogues who bequeathed important educationally edited score collections. Through their talented students, a pedagogical legacy was created that continued until the end of the eighteenth century and exerted a musical influence far beyond Europe. In this way, some technical and rhetorical tools continued to work for later generations of violinists, even to the present day. It is therefore essential to identify them and to make their music more available to a wider audience and musicians from disciplines other than HIPP. The contributions of the relevant Italian violin virtuosos will be included in addition to current historical violin lesson curricula. This will allow for a more complete and thorough exploration of the early violin repertoire, avoiding the exclusive study of Baroque or Classical “standard works” such as those by J.S. Bach or W.A. Mozart.

This PhD project by Jeremias Iturras aims to find a “creative technical convergence” between music and cinema. To elucidate this convergence, Iturras will first analyse certain film techniques (design, construction, structure, aesthetic ideas, etc.) based on specific examples from directors and films to see if it is possible and plausible to apply the “same” technical methods to a musical composition. He will look for the creation of “technical musical concepts” that will have as their origin a cinematographic idea. The initial research has revealed some technical models (specifically in relation to space and timbre) that were used in some of Iturras’ pieces. On a theoretical level, this process will be articulated by analysing two conceptual pillars: metaphor and analogy in music. The second part of this project will enquire if these technical musical concepts originating from a cinematographic idea, can in turn be applied, at the technical level, to the construction of the image (video, cinema). For that, collaboration with other artists (video and filmmakers) will be essential, resulting in an audiovisual work. Therefore, at the formal level, this project aims in its trajectory to carry out a sort of spiral during which the first idea will undergo a metamorphosis to be “reinjected” at the starting point.

Composition based on microtonal scales is enjoying increasing popularity. Xenharmonic composers  have usually limited themselves to one scale. However, the combination of microtonal scales has so far remained mostly unexplored. In "Le Sacre du Printemps" Igor Strawinsky combined modes based on the western tuning system. This approach is called polytonality. It would seem likely that the different microtonal scales can also be combined in compositions. This results in a multiplication of compositional possibilities without slipping into confusion since the composer himself determines the framework by the selection of specific scales. This selection can be based on overlaps, relationships or even complementation and might also be influenced by the respective character of the scales, as they can later be used programmatically in the composition. In this PhD, a possible working method is presented in the fields of composition, organology (instrument making) and notation including its application in the opera "The Glacier". 

The doctoral research of Tomasz Konieczny explores the symbolic dimensions of the music of Hugo Wolf, Alexander Scriabin, and Claude Debussy. It is centralized around the symbolic Night, arguably a crucial node in the web of symbolic interrelations. In the Romantic view, the nocturnal darkness, covering the appearances of the world, enables intuitive insights into the fundamental, metaphysical Wholeness of the world. Tomas Konieczny demonstrates how music contributes to sucha revelation… and how this revelation might fit the framework ofartistic research.

Throughout history, music notation has become increasingly precise and complete and its symbols have acquired an ever more absolute meaning. Looking at the period from ca. 1660 to ca. 1830, the author shows that many details were written down only approximately. Further, old prints are often error-strewn and manuscripts were mostly prepared for immediate use only, not for eternity. Frequently, important performing matters were entirely left to the performer’s discretion. Reading Early Music according to modern usage can thus easily lead to wrong or incomplete interpretations. Performing according to modern usage is another problem: today’s mainstream performing style gradually came into use since the end of the 19th century. We all grew up in this tradition; consequently its elements are fully recognised by both listeners and performers and feel natural to us. Many performers, also among the “specialists”, quite indiscriminately apply these principles to Early Music as well, thereby robbing it of many particular qualities. In Early Music, the performer actively participates in the compositional process. Indeed, besides correctly decoding the notation, he must also supplement the missing elements where necessary and in the appropriate style. “Good taste” is the criterion, but this varies with time, place, function, genre, style and person. The different attitudes a performer can adopt regarding this complicated but fascinating situation are discussed, together with their consequences. It is the author’s conviction that, when so much detailed historical documentation exists, there is hardly an excuse not to study and apply it. It should at least awake the curiosity to understand as well as possible what the composer might have heard in his mind while writing a piece of music. However, since music is not an exact science, no definitive answers can be found; at the best, a field of probabilities can be established. Artistically spoken, it is to be welcomed that this uncertainty generates only temporary answers and always new questions. Also in music pedagogy, this creative and critical reading is very important. In Early Music, it helps keeping contact with the sources themselves instead of following all too easily some charismatic performers, schools or fashions. Complete historical authenticity is obviously impossible to attain, but that is no reason for not trying to move into that direction. In the author’s opinion, striving for historical authenticity is useless if it is not nourished by the performer’s personal authenticity. The accumulated information must be integrated into his artistic concept, feelings and mother tongue, otherwise he will seem to recite or sing a text in a language which is unknown to him. The performer will need to embody the affects of the composition as if they were his own for the time being: he borrows them from the composer and afterwards can return them with thanks. The author’s motivations and choices are explained – they are personal choices, for sure, but based on artistic integrity and feeling, historical knowledge and hands-on experience.

My research is about a lot of things, but most importantly, it’s about music. It’s about my relation to music. It’s about performing, composing. It’s about emotion, expression, and the soul. It’s about a musician’s thoughts, ideas, and inspiration. There are two main concepts/questions which guided me through my Ph.D. The first one was called “The investigation into emotion-evoking parameters and techniques of the late romantic music and its recontextualization into my artistic practices”. The second one was more ambiguous with the question: “How does one become a better musician?” My aim was to link these two ideas and find a way of incorporating the research into my artistic practices. Experiments, compositions, discussions, lectures, and performances were all part of this journey. At first, I was searching for answers trying to fully comprehend the above-mentioned subjects such as emotion and expression and I wanted to unravel the mystery of music. However, by the end of this Ph.D. I realized that while we must search, hoping to find concrete answers, we should at the same time secretly hope we never find them.

As a musician, one is always a researcher. In so-called classical music or in any other style, the musician cannot escape the "research" aspect. Over the years I wandered from my original infatuation with pop and rock into the world of Classical music. Moving on from electric guitars and basses to the double bass seemed natural enough, and pretty soon I became a professional bass player in opera, symphony, solo and chamber music. Later on, curiosity led me to the discovery of fascinating gut-string bass instruments such as the different types of baroque Violone and the Viennese Bass, with their tunings in thirds and fourths. Studying Ancient Music was one of the most important decisions in my life as a musician. It fundamentally challenged and changed my way of playing and thinking. Gradually I developed a different outlook on music and its role in the real world. In the immediate aftermath of the 2011 tsunami disaster in Japan, I started a Duo with the Viennese Violone and the Viola d'Amore, and we discovered the world of benefit concerts, of playing for the sick in hospitals and for children in schools, of touring through the devastated area of Fukushima. Out of the opera's comfort zone, music suddenly became more important, more relevant and alive than I had ever experienced before. These adventures inspired me to embark on an artistic PhD entitled "Building Bridges", exploring the connections between, say, a historical approach and bringing a moment of beauty and hope to people who never listen to classical music. Between what Quantz and Leopold Mozart wrote and how audiences today perceive music. The audience: the factor that never seems to matter in music education. But without an audience, there is no music. But there are many more bridges to discover and explore. Between composer and musician, violin maker and player, teacher and student. Between musician and society, live performance and recording, practicing and performing...the list goes on and on. My PhD focuses on these multifold connections, with the main accent on the interaction between musician and listener (when was the last time your music teacher mentioned the words "listener", "audience", or "public"?) and on the links between historical and present-day ways of playing.

Binnen de jazz wordt het gebruik van de strijkstok voor improvisatie gezien als een verrijkende techniek voor het ontwikkelen van een instrumentaal idioom op de contrabas. Door de geschiedenis heen hebben veel bassisten hun eigen benadering van strijken ontwikkeld, maar het gebrek aan specifiek materiaal dat zich richt op arco-improvisatie binnen geïmproviseerde jazz en andere niet-klassieke genres zorgt ervoor dat deze praktijk grotendeels onderbenut blijft. Dit doctoraal onderzoek heeft als doel, op basis van artistieke praktijk, een strijkmethode voor contrabas te ontwikkelen die elementen uit de jazz en de westerse klassieke muziek combineert, met een focus op improvisatie. De verschillende manieren van fraseren, de specifieke woordenschat en klankkleur, de flexibiliteit die nodig is om "on the spot" te componeren en spontaan te interacteren, brengen inherente uitdagingen met zich mee waarvoor de tools uit de jazz- en klassieke muziektraining niet altijd toereikend zijn.

This research by Raffaele Longo links composition to music theory from an innovative methodological standpoint. The original character of this project relies on the definition of a new paradigm in music composition. The researcher will investigate if and how the harmony of Elliott Carter ( (1908–2012) —as it was systematized in his handbook— can be the driver to explore novel composition paths by testing the values of a “new humanistic” prospect through the deconstructionist approach. Carter’s harmonic world here assumes the role of a postmodern music grammar (in the nature of a kind of “Renaissance studio”). Simultaneously, the research also attempts to innovate creatively by positing a new compositional paradigm based on the ultimate resultants of poststructuralism, all within the framework of a transformational-generative approach.

This PhD project by Jean-François Madeuf focuses on the in-depth artistic and theoretical research of the historical trumpet: its playing techniques and style, its historical context, its literature, and its repertoire. The research will not only be based on historical research but will also assess from the researcher’s own performance practice whether the information available in historical treatises and other sources is also valuable for the technique of the instrument and for the interpretation of the historical repertoire.

This research approaches the works of Robert Schumann from the perspective of the performing artist. It takes into account theoretical aspects and historical context, as well as an exploration of how these compositions were inspired by the style and psychology of writers such as E. T. A. Hoffmann and Jean Paul. The researcher will also seek to grasp the composer’s deepest thoughts through their own artistic practice and insight, informed not only by an extensive study of Schumann’s models—both musical and literary—but also by engagement with twentieth-century and contemporary literary, philosophical, and musical currents firmly rooted in the same tradition. The research will culminate in the performance and recording of these compositions.

For this very own ‘teatro dell’ascolto’ – not in wood, but on paper and above all, in sound – the structure of ‘Prometeo’ and the idea of Camillo’s ‘Teatro della Memoria’, set the tone, as it were, as did the Prometheus trilogy (which has not survived complete) and the town plan of La Serenissima. The search through this theatre is intermingled with the Venetian labyrinth:  it has become a mosaic of proprietary texts that have accompanied my own activities as a performing musician for the last seventeen years, interspersed with words of others – words which turn out to be important for my psyche. Seven concert programmes form the gallery of pillars of the theatre – processed in seven mandalas, inspired by the mandalas that the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung exchanged with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli in one of the most fascinating correspondences of the twentieth century.  Furthermore, James Dillon’s contemporary Western musical settings of the ‘five elements’ may also refer to the Orient (was Venice not the crossroads between East and West for centuries?). And, as befits a dreamer, I do not limit myself to one language or colour.  This theatre also becomes decorated and supported by inspiring manuscripts by various composers and by symbolic images.

How can one learn to improvise convincingly within the context of nineteenth-century piano repertoire? And why is it important to improvise on this repertoire in the twenty-first century? Using the music of Robert Schumann as a starting point, Bobby Mitchell’s doctoral research, Playing Schumann Again for the First Time, answers these questions through methods for a pianistic practice driven by experimentation that strives to find ever more layers where improvisation can take place, both in the musical practice of sound and notation. These methods of practice are contextualized through a discussion of the presence of improvisation in western classical music practice in the nineteenth century. They are then substantiated by a plea to use improvisation as a working tool to rethink the current performance practice of nineteenth-century music. Improvisation and the concepts that underpin this term will also be discussed, and the knowledge gained in this project will be described as improvisation-as-practice as well as improvisation-as-art.

The accordion is a relatively new instrument in contemporary music. Consequently, composers can rely on little literature to understand the mechanic and sonic possibilities of the accordion. Moreover, the existing repertoire for accordion is very small. Therefore, as the researcher has experienced, collaborations with composers are strongly characterized by a close relationship between composer and performer whereby the performer often takes an active role in the creation of musical material. There are many misconceptions circulating about how musical works are composed. In the classical musical tradition, the final work is usually attached to the name of the composer but experience shows that it is usually the result of co-creation between the (intended) performer and the composer, especially in the primary phase where raw sonic material is developed that serves as a breeding ground for the rest of the creation process. This PhD research by Luca Piovesan aims to pry open the proverbial cracks in general opinion by further obscuring the accordion’s operation from the composer, including through the use of an array of electronic sound shapers. With this personalized instrument, the researcher will set up new collaborations with composers and analyze the results of the co-creative processes with the theoretical tools of semiotic and historical analysis.

This dissertation presents an artistic research investigation into the application of techniques and theoretical models derived from early French spectral music to the cocreative dynamics of small jazz ensembles. Spectral methods grounded in harmonic and non-harmonic spectra, perceptual fusion, and continuous transformation, such as those developed by Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail, presuppose highly controlled compositional environments, while jazz relies on extemporaneous interaction, personal agency, and a heterogeneous sound ideal. The productive tensions and potential irreconcilabilities that ensue are explored by pianist and artistic researcher Piergiorgio Pirro in a series of artistic experiments. Pirro shows that introducing theoretical models and paradigms from spectralism as a “foreign body” into the workings of a small jazz band illuminates a complex network of factors at play in the band’s music making, leading to a thorough reconfiguration in which new instruments are built and played, old habits need to be unlearnt, uncommon interactions emerge, and theoretical frameworks clash in practice. His experimentation generates an artistic and technical/theoretical account of the possibilities and limits of the application of spectral approaches in the small jazz band. The theoretical findings oLer a lens through which it is possible to discern certain elements and entities involved in jazz practice and shed light on cultural dynamics that are deeply engrained in the music making of the small jazz ensemble.

This research project is about the search of the lost musical language of the simple system flute. With the spread of the Boehm flute in the second half of the 19th century, the simple system flute and its playing tradition disappeared. Today early 19th century repertoire is played for the most part on instruments that did not exist at the time. This has lead to completely different sound aesthetics and interpretations of the works. The goal of this doctorate was to reconstruct the lost knowledge about the mastery of the simple system flute and the interpretation of the music with the help of original instruments and written sources such as flute methods, concert reviews or other writings on the flute and flutists. Anne Pustlauk has studied and analysed approximately 160 flute methods, 400 original instruments and 830 chamber music works. On the playing level the most important aspects were: research on tone, application of fingerings, articulation, musical accent, tempo rubato, ornaments etc. The study of period instruments delivered valuable information about the correlation of development of the instrument, changing musical taste, the playing style as well as sound aesthetics. Since very few chamber music works of the early 19th century are presently known and played in concert, she has studied as many works as possible and evaluated their quality in order to enlarge the flute repertoire. In this research Anne Pustlauk investigated every aspect of the simple system flute that is needed for a professional mastery of the instrument and the interpretation of the works from a historical point of view. In the theoretical part of this doctorate she has created a website (www.anne- pustlauk.de) that contains the most important information gained from flute methods. The website contains moreover two databases that are regularly updated: a comprehensive list of all chamber music works that she has studied, a list of all fingerings presented in flute methods as well as a list of all flute methods.

Pierre Gaviniès (1728–1800) is een van de belangrijkste figuren in de geschiedenis van de viool: als speler, als artistiek directeur van het ensemble Le Concert Spirituel, als leraar, en als componist. Terwijl hij alom bewonderd werd tijdens zijn leven, is hij nu nog maar weinig bekend, hoewel zijn vioolstudies, de zogeheten 24 Matinées, nog wel worden gespeeld.
Gaviniès is niet zomaar de zoveelste herontdekking; hij is een sleutelfiguur in de evolutie van het maken, bespelen van, en componeren voor de viool in de achttiende eeuw. Tussen zijn eerste verschijning als wonderkind in Le Concert Spirituel tot de reeds genoemde Matinées in de jaren 1790 veranderde het maken van violen en het bespelen ervan compleet.
De Franse Revolutie bracht een nieuw artistiek élan met zich mee en het Conservatoire de Paris werd opgericht. In dat tijdsgewricht werd te Parijs de “moderne viool”, zoals deze nu wordt genoemd, geboren. Oude Italiaanse instrumenten reconstrueren, nieuwe strijkstokken (bv. van François-Xavier Tourte) en nieuwe speeltechnieken; Parijs kreeg een leidende positie in Europa op het vlak van vernieuwing van de viool. Gaviniès was een van de drijvende krachten van deze veranderingen. Hoe, waarom en wanneer dit alles exact gebeurde, vormt het vertrekpunt van dit doctoraatsproject door Christophe Robert.

This research focuses on the contemporary functioning of the composer-performer relationship in the Western classical tradition, and on its implied notions of creative property. I develop this inquiry along two tracks. The first track consists of case studies on music written in the past half century. The works the researcher is particularly interested in fall into two categories: those of which the actual realization problematizes the notion of authorship latent in their surrounding discourse; and those that challenge dominant notions of the score as a means for mass-reproduction in the classical music industry. The second track consists of experiments with material conditions that cause the lines between composer and performer roles to shift and blur. These experiments are part of long-term collaborations with other musical creators, and their wide-ranging effects are the subject of continuous analysis.

It is well known that in his 1928 film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s novella *The Fall of the House of Usher*, Jean Epstein did not rely solely on this masterpiece of so-called “fantastic” literature, but skillfully interwove it with another tale by the same author, *The Oval Portrait*. Yet these two stories alone are not sufficient to fully grasp Epstein’s imagery. A closer look at the various scenes reveals subtle references to other texts by Poe, such as *Ligeia* and *The Pit and the Pendulum*. But *Berenice*, *The Premature Burial*, and even his theoretical treatises *The Philosophy of Furniture* and *The Philosophy of Composition* have also left their mark. It is primarily in these implicitly suggested texts that I found material to musically enrich the rather limited characterizations of Epstein’s visualization. They provide the necessary elements to furnish the different characters with a backstory—and thus with psychological depth: Madeline becomes a reincarnation of the initiated priestess Ligeia, and Roderick the sickly scholar from *Berenice*. Even the demonic “physician” and the scene in which the coffin falls and bursts open can be traced back to recurring motifs in Poe’s collected works. All of this is further complemented by symbols drawn from Jewish and pre-biblical traditions: the night owl and the billowing curtains likely allude to the ancient Mesopotamian storm demon Lilith, while the recurring references to mud and decay may be linked to the legend of the Golem. When one connects this to the historical fact that Epstein ceased making art films after *La Chute de la maison Usher*, the interpretation proposed by some—that “by resisting his urge to paint, Roderick overcomes his demons and wins back his wife”—may not be merely moralizing, but could also be understood in biographical terms. In order to prevent the expressionist acting style of early cinema from unintentionally tipping over into comic caricature, I therefore chose not to compose the kind of conventional horror music found in old manuals for cinema pianists. Instead, I opted to create an unusual sonic atmosphere through the use of highly distinctive chords. These were derived from the sounds of natural disasters that evoke a primal fear: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and so on. In nature, such sounds compel one to flee; in the concert hall…

Granular synthesis has been known for a long time, both in audio and video applications. In this project we want to investigate whether granular techniques, thinking in particles, swarms and waves instead of individual parameters, can help to activate even more senses when creating and playing immersive spaces —where sound and image evoke a total experience— and thus open the door for new immersive experiences for the audience. Using techniques from quantum physics and artificial intelligence, this research, in collaboration with experimental physicist Jan Eysermans (CERN) and neural network specialist Frederik De Bleser, aims not only to design a compositional model that allows for the creation of immersive spaces, but also to develop tools that will allow performing artists to interact with these spaces in the context of an artistic performance. Not only will these models and tools be tested and validated in workshops with students of the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, they will also be applied throughout the research in a number of performances in collaboration with ChampdAction and HERMESensemble under the umbrella title “Les Nymphéas digitales,” culminating in a large immersive installation with 3D visuals, sound and musicians in the course of autumn 2023.

George Enescu (1881-1955) is considered one of the most prominent figures of twentieth-century Romanian music. While there are many resources that examine him as a composer and as a violinist (Enescu Societies in France, Romania and United States of America) little material exists that applies this knowledge to the performance of his piano music. Many stylistic aspects need to be researched in order to arrive at the best approximation of the composer’s intentions and his personal artistic message. Included in these are awareness of the appropriate literary and musical sources (writings, testimonies, musical manuscripts, historical recordings, contextual information etc). This wealth of information will be analyzed and so that the end result will be informed recordings of the Suites and Sonatas, accompanied by written commentary on the interpretative choices made and their justification. This research is the first specific and comprehensive study of George Enescu’s Suites and Sonatas for piano solo, which will investigate central aspects of performance issues of the above mentioned works.

In volledige interactie met het repertoire van instrumenten als cello, viool en altviool wordt getracht technieken te definiëren die tot nu toe niet gebruikt of uitvoerig geanalyseerd werden, met als centraal doel het gitaarspel te optimaliseren. Een groot deel van het onderzoek richt zich op het documenteren van al deze technieken en hun toepassing op het moderne gitaarspel in een methode die tekst en visuele voorbeelden zal omvatten.
Het arrangeren van partituren die oorspronkelijk voor deze orkestinstrumenten werden gecomponeerd vormt een uitdaging voor elke gitaarbewerking, vooral wanneer men technische oplossingen probeert te vinden voor het gebruik van de strijkstok. Een van de werken die Tosidis arrangeert is de cello solo Sacher Variations van Witold Lutosławski (1975). Afgezien van de technische moeilijkheden bij de bewerking, zijn er ook belangrijke problemen wat betreft het gebruik van microtonen en onregelmatige intervallen. Het repertoire van de gitaar is beperkt in vergelijking met dat van de andere snaarinstrumenten, met als gevolg dat weinig vooraanstaande componisten voor de gitaar componeren. Dit onderzoek zal niet alleen het gitaarrepertoire uitbreiden met nieuwe composities, maar ook de grenzen van de technische mogelijkheden van het instrument verschuiven, onder andere door opdrachtwerken van componisten als Atanas Ourkouzounov, Marios Joannou Elias, Feliu Gassul, Marko Dottlinger, Giorgos Nousis en Giannis Papakrassas.

Unlike non-idiomatic improvisation with human improvisers, it is more difficult to create intense and surprising music when interacting with a computer. Also, the concept of improvisation as a musical dialogue is difficult for a computer to recognize. In this doctoral research, Peter van Bergen aims to translate his aesthetic views on musical improvisation and composition, as well as his musical experiences in interacting with human improvisers, into an environment where human musical improvisers and artificial improvisers (hard- & software personalities, computers) work together. To this end, software for interactive and autonomous improvisation will be developed, in collaboration with programmer Johan van Kreij. These software tools can help to investigate the “true, unstable nature” of improvisation and composition and make it audible and visible in a practical context. The research should lead to new compositional improvisational work, unpredictable improvisations with their own aesthetic signature, a new personal instrumental and improvisational technique and syntax, texts describing artistic research, and theory on improvisation in relation to composition, computers, interactivity and instability.

This research departs from the observation that the legacy of Cole Porter appears to remain vibrant, yet in practice is confined to a small canon of frequently performed songs. Of the hundreds of works available, only a fraction continues to circulate. This study therefore explores the lesser-known repertoire and asks whether a more nuanced understanding of Porter as a composer-lyricist is possible. Methodologically, the project combines academic research with artistic and audiovisual practices. An essay examines Porter’s European years and their influence on his style, while a documentary traces a search for his artistic identity. At its core, however, lies the performance of 280 songs in a concert format, made available online, with attention to their historical and pedagogical context. A CD recording serves as the artistic culmination of this trajectory. The study presents Porter as a distinctly paradoxical figure: at once elitist and popular, ironic and sincere, classically trained yet open to jazz and light music. His work balances humor and tragedy, refinement and directness. This research demonstrates that Porter’s lesser-known oeuvre makes a substantial contribution to his artistic profile and remains relevant today. At the same time, it opens up perspectives for further research and for a broader dissemination of his repertoire.

Performer-audience communication can easily be regarded as one of the biggest and therefor most debated problems the contemporary computer musician faces in a live performance situation. This can be accredited to a disassociation between the performative gestures and the sounds they produce. This notion of disconnection, which is absent in most traditional instruments, is intrinsic to the computer musician’s instrument. Furthermore, it’s inextricably linked to the idiomatic nature of the compositions which are to be performed on it. 
While it is impossible to see the choices made in regard of the formation of the instrument as detached from the idiomatic nature of the performed compositions, the instrument has an undeniable influence on the aesthetic nature of these compositions. This conundrum is a common fact for the multi-threaded performer who is burdened with pursuing a balance between all given factors in order to create as much artistic freedom as possible in the context of both the composition of the instrument and the aesthetic language applied in the compositions. In order to guarantee a meaningful electronics performance, I’ll propose a performance practice that’s based on connecting performance gestures to visual animations which are projected onto the performance platform of the computer musician’s instrument. These visual animations can, in their turn, be linked to the sonic result of the performer’s actions, thus creating a positive feedback loop, capable of optimising the communication model which exists between the computer musician and the audience in a concert situation.
With this research project I aim to demonstrate that the computer musician is indeed an artistic performer, maintaining a similar degree of artistry comparable to that of acoustic instrumentalists.

Italian “Early Baroque” music has long captivated modern recorder players. Today, Italian canzonas and sonatas published between the 1610s and the 1670s are standard recorder repertoire, and recorders seem also indispensable in the revival of seventeenth-century Italian operas. This has led to a widespread perception that, during the seventeenth century, the recorder must have been a prominent instrument in Italian music, on par with other soprano instruments such as the cornett and violin. Additionally, it is often assumed that the most commonly used recorder size was the soprano in C, preferably with a wide-bore design. However, as this research aims to demonstrate, this picture is the result of conflating several distinct performance practices from different times and places in the seventeenth century. While it is true that recorders continued to play a role in the performance of Italian music throughout the century, their prominence was never comparable to that of the cornett or violin. Similarly, while recorders were often used to perform instrumental parts not originally intended for them, this was not universal across all Italian musical genres, nor was it equally common in all European regions where Italian music was performed. Moreover, although soprano recorders were sometimes used for the performance of Italian music, they were never a solo instrument in the hands of Italian professional musicians. Finally, while it cannot be excluded that some players may have used wide-bore instruments, other bore designs appear to be more historically and aesthetically plausible. As its title suggests, this research aims to situate the recorder within a broader musical and social context. The question of the recorder's place in the performance of seventeenth-century Italian music raises a number of issues and underlying questions that require exploration: Was the recorder used as a solo instrument, as part of an ensemble, or both? Which instruments were recorders combined with? In what genres and performance settings was the recorder employed? How frequently was it used in comparison to other melodic soprano instruments? Who were the musicians playing the recorder? What sizes of recorders were in use, and what ranges did they have, and in relation to that, what kind of musical parts were considered suitable for performance on the recorder? Were any particular aesthetic characteristics attributed to the instrument? And, finally, in relation to all questions above, were there any significant regional differences in its use? The ultimate goal of this research is to inspire modern recorder players to embrace a more historically informed and aesthetically plausible approach to performing Italian seventeenth-century music through the insights provided by my findings.

Since 2012, Jan Van Landeghem has been working on an artistic product, a transversal multimedial composition on texts of Emile Verhaeren: “Chansons de fou”. These seven socially engaged poems typify the misery of the rural population at the end of the 19th century. The crops failed, there was a grinding poverty, the discrepancy between the poor and the rich became bigger and bigger. People saught solutions in the factories of the new cities. Unfortunately, this situation would lead to World War One. This extreme tension field is evoked in the symbolic imagery of the poems. In order to frame these poems in the best possible way, the composer has chosen the following strength: soprano solo, violin-viola solo, string quartet, four dancers, image and lighting. For the projections, current press pictures were used, as well as paintings that date from the same period as the poems. The performances were planned in the fall of 2017, at the Church Notre Dame of Laeken, the Church of Sint-Amands and the Saint Nicolas Church in Sint-Niklaas. As the period we now live in clearly shows resemblances with the “fin de siècle”, the performance constantly points at contemporary fields of tension, be it with a globalising character.

Hoe kan, in een nieuw te componeren concerto voor piano en orkest, de piano wezenlijk deel uitmaken van het spectraal materiaal zonder dat het als een fremdkörper voelt? De piano is altijd een lastig te hanteren instrument binnen een spectrale context. Immers, doordat de stemming vastligt, is er binnen de boventoon-structuren weinig flexibiliteit, zoals Georg Friedrich Haas erkent in het voorwoord van zijn pianoconcerto (2007): “Every point of concentration in my music is impossible on the piano: microtonality, Klangfarbe, pitch clashes and slow dynamic developments…” De weinige manieren om de piano toch als spectraal instrument in te zetten —zonder in te grijpen op de stemming, extended techniques te gebruiken, of microtonen in spectra af te ronden naar halve tonen— zijn, onder meer, het laten spelen van de “welgetemperde” noten van het gebruikte spectrum of het inzetten van galm.
In dit onderzoek dat Van Parys voert via haar concerto voor piano en orkest, onderzoekt ze hoe de piano kan ingezet worden als volwaardig onderdeel van een natuurlijk spectrum. Gezien de piano uiteraard zijn stemming blijft behouden, is de enige optie, om naargelang de noden van het spectrum, het orkest errond aan te passen. Doordat hierdoor de positie van de noten telkens een andere plaats binnen het spectrum inneemt, kan dit ook een variërende mate van dissonantie of consonantie genereren. Hieruit zou een harmonisch ritme of zelfs een groter harmonisch discours kunnen ontstaan.

Sigurd Raschèr (1907-2001), born in Germany and emigrated to America just before the Second World War, is one of the most important pioneers and one of the most influential classical saxophonists of the 20th century. He built an international career as a soloist and encouraged many contemporary composers to write works for saxophone especially for him. In this way, he expanded the saxophone repertoire considerably.  Also as a pedagogue he developed a tradition that he passed on to his students, in this context we can really speak of a 'school'. The saxophone quartet that he started in 1969, still exists: the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. The PhD- student has been a member since 2014. On a technical level, Sigurd Raschèr extended the tone range of the saxophone by more than an octave. These are the so-called 'Top-tones'. This dissertation wants to contextualize and critically map Raschèr's influence within the discipline of the classical saxophone. First of all, the definition of the Raschèr tradition is examined. According to Raschèr himself, his tradition is based on Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), the Belgian inventor of the saxophone. This link between Raschèr and Sax is critically examined in terms of the construction and sound of the instruments. Raschèr himself did not play an original saxophone, but an instrument from the American firm of Ferdinand Buescher (1861-1937). Raschèr stimulated the firm to make an instrument that could realize his ideal sound.  The dissertation also explores the history of the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet.

The research was into the perception of orchestral timbres applied to the piano repertoire to enrich tone and to intensify the multi-interpretable aspects of a composition. Experimental investigation into this, influenced by the imagination (of the performer), represents a unique approach and leads to a totally new perspective for the performer. The entire procedure is based on a number of defining parameters, which lead to a coming together of idea and musical expression that offers new horizons for the performer. It is not easy to evaluate the gradation of orchestral sound on the piano because it is difficult to measure the effect in definable criteria. Moreover, some existing concepts, such as ‘symphonic’ and ‘orchestral’ are so universal that they are not sufficient to formulate adequately 'orchestral sound on piano'. Therefore, in the course of this investigation different terms are introduced, that shed more light on this problem. Perception and interpretation of the textures of the repertoire are crucial in this research. A single-case test was developed to measure the effect of timbre by using EEG –measurements. In this way the influence of the imagination on the orchestral perception in the piano repertoire was traced. This leads to a new sound image which is a sample of the unique vision of the performer.

Les Synthétistes was a collective of Belgian composers (René Bernier, Francis de Bourguignon, Gaston Brenta, Théo De Joncker, Robert Otlet, Marcel Poot, Maurice Schoemaker, and Jules Strens) who united in 1925 on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of their celebrated teacher, Paul Gilson. Their intention was to synthesize various trends in music from 1925 onwards. During this period in Belgian music history, the concert band was an important tool for composers, especially because of the lack of a professional symphony orchestra. Consequently, the Synthetists composed a considerable canon of original symphonic works for wind orchestra. With this PhD research, Luc Vertommen seeks to bring new insights into the development and historical significance of Belgian music with an emphasis on music for wind orchestra and its considerable international relevance. The ultimate goal is to generate broad interest and stimulate the study and performance of this repertoire. First, theoretical and contextual research will lead to an in-depth study of the life and work for wind orchestra of Marcel Poot, the protagonist of the Synthetists. This will result in a biography and definitive works list of Poot’s works for wind orchestra. Secondly, the identification of dates and source material will lead to the compilation of an exhaustive list of original works for wind orchestra composed by all Synthetists. To date, more than sixty original works have already been selected for their intrinsic musical value and their international and historical importance. Thirdly, and also the focus of this PhD, practice-based artistic research will lead to the editing and publishing of the selected works.

The continuing evolution of the marimba’s modern performance practice has ushered myriad challenges to the current generation of performers. One uniting issue is that the marimba is an idiophone at its core. The sound is created by a mallet touching a wooden bar and making it vibrate. The impact is fast and the contact happens in a split second. The performer has no direct contact with his instrument while playing and has no direct influence on the resonance, which is often seen as a limiting quality in western classical music. This leaves many marimba performers in search of space for the expression of their musical intentions, and created the current research trend: analyses of sound projection and body movements. Though these topics are important factors for marimba playing, the outcome of these researches is evident and conceals the raison d’être as a musician — bring imaginary sound and constructive notes alive to communicate and resonate with people. Where to find space in marimba performance for the expression of all musical elements needed to convey ones musical intentions? As mathematics are a tool for humans to establish equal conjectures, musical performance cannot be described and evaluated by equations and formulas. Written around the sixth century BC, Chinese philosopher Laozi’s Tao Te Ching captures themes that are timeless and specific yet imaginative like intuition, consciousness and beauty. The original Chinese characters contain multiple meanings. Sentences are short yet incisive continuously engaging interpreters through its concentrated essence. Descendants are left space finding their own way of applying it to each of their own current needs. My research goal is to provide critical competencies for marimba performance by applying Laozi’s Taoist philosophy.