Ongoing PhDs

How can the sovereign who determines our rights and obligations as members of society also ‘unmake’ us? Why are some people declared undesirable? Why are their lives devalued and pushed out of political structures?

The contemporary compositional practice of mixed music, understood here as written music combining acoustic instruments with electronics, has a number of inherent problems. For example, the synchronization between the performer and the electronics, the complexity of digital interfaces and the need for an acoustic fusion between the two are some of the main issues discussed in academic research. This PhD project by Igor C. Silva aims to develop new systems that will provide simple, practical,...

Within jazz, the use of the bow for improvisation is considered an enriching technique for developing an instrumental idiom on the double bass. Throughout history, many bass players have developed their own approach to bow playing, but the lack of specific material dedicated to arco improvisation within improvised jazz and other non-classical genres means that this practice remains largely underutilized. This doctoral research by Filippe Caporali aims to develop, based on artistic practice, a...

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.

The research of Saddie Choua is related to the prelude "How do I make images about minority groups?" Starting from her own practice as a visual artist, video artist, documentary maker, she wonders how art can work in a political emancipatory way within our current patriarchal, racist and capitalist society?

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...

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...

The last four/five years I have been working on two documentary films in the context of migration, identity and integration: ‘No Man Is An Island’ and ‘Passe-Partout’. The films have been released and shown around the world.

Science and technology have become an essential part of our cultural identity. With this PhD research, I aim to delve into the implications that this fact has on our ancestral search for meaning. And in particular, I want to focus on listening to female voices.

The Breath Art project of Maribeth Diggle will investigate how breath can be identified and studied as a primary actor in practices of dynamic performance expression, and how embodying conscious breath techniques can strengthen different performance output, which will help design a brand new breath art methodology to contribute to, and complement, already standing curriculum. Until now, the role of breath as a central part of the performative and interpretative act has been largely under...

This research explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and creative arts by developing a digital twin of an artist, capable of generating novel audiovisual performances. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset that includes historical performance data, personal communications, and social media feeds, the project aims to create an AI model that closely mimics the artist's style. The study investigates the boundaries between human creativity and computational innovation, addressing...

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...

What is the impact of social-artistic work or community art?  Community art is most of the time small-scale and less visible in the field of the arts. Working with sociallly vulnerable participants is very specific and the outcome is most of the time not an ordinary work of art that can be sold. It is not prestigious.  But this kind of art does have a big influence on the lives of the participants.

Concurrent with the birth of basso continuo, a few genres of music grew up together. Each genre required a different approach to playing basso continuo. Indeed, although the various genres are based on counterpoint rules, they differ in their compositional concept. Early seventeenth-century Italian sources have left us a great deal of information. However, it is seldom pedagogically presented as we would expect today, their contents being rarely explicit. Much implicit knowledge is contained...

De moderne gitarist is een hybride gitarist: een uitvoerder die zich een veelheid van technische en muzikale eigenschappen eigen moet maken die niet alleen behoren tot de klassieke gereedschapskist, maar ook tot de specifieke culturele achtergrond van de werken. Dit wordt onmiddellijk duidelijk in repertoire dat sterk geïnspireerd is door folkloristische idiomen. Het heterogene karakter van de volksmuziekelementen roept de vertolker niet alleen op om melodische en ritmische inzichten aan te...

This project starts from problems, I experienced during my artistic work in the KVS (Royal Flemish Theatre) in Brussels, where I was working as a dramaturge and a member of the artistic staff between 2001 and 2013. My colleagues and me asked ourselves the following question: how to counter the negative effects of neoliberalism in a city like Brussels? And what kind of role art and artists could play in such a project? We found an answer for now in the powerful vision on  the city and...

In free improvisation on double bass, the area in between functional contexts on the one hand and the creation of unconventional sounds by means of extended techniques on the other, remains largely unexplored. By means of investigating the structures and mechanisms in the free and modal improvisations of Herbie Hancock, and modifying these materials in accordance with the limitations and possibilities of the contrabass, Stefan aims at developing strategies and methods that should enable...

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....

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...

This doctoral research by Marco Mantovani focuses on six piano pieces by Robert Schumann composed between 1836 and 1838 (i.e., Fantasie op. 17, Fantasiestucke op. 12, Davidsbundlertanze op. 6, Novelletten op. 21, Kinderszenen op. 15, Kreisleriana op. 16), a period that was arguably one of the turning points in his personal and artistic life. Many of Schumann’s most important piano works and some of the most illuminating examples of his extraordinary compositional process and his formal and...

Being is hearing and being heard. I embrace the idea that sound is a phenomenon that we both influence and are influenced by.

This research project investigates the influence of coloured light on perception. It pursues a twofold approach. On the one hand, it intends to clarify how coloured light influences the perception of the beholder within the performative space. On the other hand, it also pursues an artistic approach through the creation of an immersive installation that can function as an example of performative spaces in general and provide (future) lighting designers with the tools to light a scene...

With the assimilation of pedal techniques developed by progressive metal drummers, this PhD research by Luis Mora aims to expand the expressive capabilities of drummers in the rhythmically complex context of contemporary jazz. To this end, the researcher works on three interacting fronts: the development of a new vocabulary for footwork in line with the jazz tradition; the incorporation of recent playing technique developments from progressive metal practice; and the expansion of the jazz...

This research is a kind of archaeology of the present moment - we preserve and explore reality at the same time as we experience it. The study focuses on the intersection of significant historical events with personal archival materials and the evolving perceptions of both viewers and authors, aiming to uncover how these events influence an author's interpretation. Central to the study is the exploration of the symbiotic relationship between form and content in storytelling. The researcher...

We can conclude from historical source material that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century instrument building experienced a tremendous explosion of varied instrumentation, partly due to the continuous search of the theorist, musician, and instrument builder for new instrument-technical and resulting extra-musical possibilities. Yet today within historical performance practice we often see the use of a standardized set of instruments. The applicable keyboard instruments are thereby reduced to...

ARTISTIC STUDY ON INTEGRATION, SOCIAL COMMONS AND TOGETHERNESS

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...

Spectralism is an attitude toward musical composition that emerged in 1970s Europe, particularly through the work of a group of French composers such as Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail. Spectral music shifts attention from discrete musical categories towards notions of process, continuity, and the exploration of perceptual and cultural thresholds.The aim of this doctoral research is to study the application of spectral techniques and attitudes into the compositional and performance practice...

Charbon is a PhD research and a film about my continent Europe and me. I was born in coal and came of age in petroleum and will die in the changing climate of renewable energy....

Pierre Gaviniès (1728–1800) is one of the most important figures in the history of the violin: as a player, as artistic director of the ensemble Le Concert Spirituel, as a teacher, and as a composer. While he was widely admired during his lifetime, he is little known today, although his violin studies, known as the 24 Matinées, are still performed.

What are the possible keys to rediscover classical texts for theater in post-dramatic times?

In the early 1970s, dramaturge Marianne Van Kerkhoven founded political theatre company Het Trojaanse Paard. Specific to this group, and to related groups around them, was the conviction that art served a purpose beyond art: to bring about a process of social awareness and provide audiences with strategies to transform their everyday reality. The moment of performance was given an intention for the reality around it.

“In India, the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post-IMF “reforms” middle class— the market—live side by side with spirits of the nether world, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains and denuded forests; the ghosts of 2,50,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us. And who survive on less than twenty rupees (0.25 Euro) a day” - Arundhati Roy

This doctoral research by Kostas Tosidis explores the importance of the bow in the guitar playing. In complete interaction with the repertoire of instruments such as the cello, violin and viola, it attempts to define techniques that until now have not been employed or extensively analyzed, with the central aim of optimizing the guitar playing. Much of the research focuses on documenting all these techniques and their application to modern guitar playing in a method that will include text and...

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....

Does an animated inanimate object have the power to move us in an emotional, intellectual and literal sense? Laura Vandewynckel investigates the impact of puppets and automata on the unsuspecting spectator. Can these beings, that are active and passive, subject and object, everyone and no one at the same time, be used to visualize social mechanisms? The puppet-thing triggers our critical reflection, the puppet-being compels us to engage emotionally. In the hybrid documentary project Pharmakoi...

In this PhD research, Tomma Wessel focuses on the performance techniques and different types of the extended instrument family of the recorder. The acoustic properties, their repercussions on sound production and new sound possibilities are the focus. The processing of the results leads to a clear conceptual framework. Extensive sound and video examples serve to illustrate the in-depth research. The result will be a website accessible to composers and players.

The question whether there is an artistic movement, a “school” of vocal jazz that is not solely based on the American tradition, has never been fully explored by jazz musicians. Therefore, with this doctoral research Barbara Wiernik wants to find out to what extent our milieu defines us artistically, whether there are more European currents, and what its main branches are. The methodology originates in artistic practice and is based on filmed meetings with a number of European key figures...