CENTRE FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PERFORMANCE PRACTICE TO BE LAUNCHED AT THE IMR

From October 2010, a new CENTRE FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PERFORMANCE PRACTICE (DeNOTE) is located in the Institute of Musical Research. Startup funding of £14,400 for 2010-12 has been generously provided for this project by the School of Advanced Study (Dean’s Development Fund). DeNOTE will comprise seminars, recitals and lecture-recitals on eighteenth-century music, and a web resource.

Autumn 2010 Events

Spring 2011 Events

Summer 2011 Events

Autumn 2011 Events

Spring 2012 Events

CENTRE FOR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PERFORMANCE PRACTICE (DeNOTE)

Rationale

One of the IMR’s key priorities in research facilitation and promotion in the medium term (2009-14) is expanding the accessibility of its work beyond HEIs to embrace the vibrant community of independent scholars within music research. Among these communities are performers, audiences, and institutions such as concert halls and ensembles. The creation of DeNOTE within the IMR is a significant step in this outreach, and seeks to involve independent practitioner-researchers working across the Baroque and Classical style-periods within the IMR’s research facilitation agenda. DeNOTE aims to give individual practitioner-researchers working on their own small-scale projects a valuable platform for discussing their work more widely within their communities and also with academic specialists from within the conservatoire and university sector. DeNOTE’s principal aim is to encourage a creative mixture of practical and intellectual approaches to the musical realization of eighteenth-century repertories. In particular, DeNOTE will spotlight practice-based research topics that move beyond notation itself and into the performative realm of sound – unbinding the music from the score ('de-noting' it), while simultaneously seeking to recapture, redefine and consequently to explain ('denote') the expressive practice of music as it was understood in the eighteenth century.

What will DeNOTE offer to the independent scholar of performance practice?

A series of seminars (parallel with the existing ‘Directions in Musical Research’ series) to be held at the IMR and elsewhere on practice-as-research issues, bringing together players and academics (and also university and conservatoire personnel)
A series of recitals and lecture-recitals to be held regionally (and occasionally at the IMR), disseminating eighteenth-century practice-as-research issues to varied audiences in HEIs and beyond and bringing together players and academics in situations where such knowledge may be exchanged
Eventually, a web-based repository to be developed within the IMR, in association with the University of London Computing Centre (ULCC) for completed and ongoing practice-as-research project reports
Access to email discussion lists offered on the IMR webpages as a resource to player-researchers whose work may presently be taking place in isolation from a research community - offering valuable feedback that such a dimension so often brings
The opportunity to discuss work in progress with the IMR Director and receive advice on appropriate presentation of their work
Networking, via the IMR’s web-based repository, with other practitioner-scholars in related areas and consequent information exchange
Opportunity, via the IMR’s web-based repository, to develop a free-to-access project development portfolio to showcase the ongoing development of work by individual practitioner-scholars which they may add to over time
Potential for contact, via moderated discussion lists, between individual freelance professional players and conservatoire and university academics working on performance practice issues in this field
A dedicated ‘What’s the Score?’ e-forum which would host small-scale ‘Beyond Text’-type projects looking at performance issues lying behind the notated text of eighteenth-century compositions (examples could include: unequal temperaments; tempo relations; equal/unequal stringing tensions for violin repertoire from Vivaldi to Mozart; texture and structure...)

DeNOTE naturally links to the IMR’s existing PRIMO resource (Practice as Research in Music Online), and the hope is that a growing number of practitioner-researchers working on eighteenth-century repertoires will populate that site with short, focused extracts (in audio and/or video) of their practice-as-research work.

Provisional Timetable for DeNOTE

October 2010 – June 2011: first tranche of DeNOTE seminars, recitals and lecture-recitals (aiming at approximately 10 events); general advocacy for DeNOTE
April – June 2011: preliminary discussions of e-resource (taking into account feedback from seminar participants)
June – September 2011: e-resource defined and initial preparation commenced; first DeNOTE submissions to PRIMO expected
October – December 2011: second tranche of DeNOTE seminars, lecture-recitals and recitals (5 events anticipated); growing participation in DeNOTE e-resources; further PRIMO submissions expected; early population of ‘What’s the Score?’ pages
January – June 2011: third tranche of DeNOTE seminars (5 per term); further population of ‘What’s the Score?’; further PRIMO submissions; ongoing expansion of e-resource use
June – September 2011: final refinement of e-resource by ULCC, as necessary