1857 research outputs found
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HEartS survey 2019: charting the health, economic, and social impact of the arts
No full textThe HEartS Survey 2019 is a cross-sectional nonprobability-based survey of 5,338 adults in the United Kingdom in 2019. It contains data on demographic and socioeconomic information (age, gender, ethnicity, geographic region, educational qualifications, living situation, household income), trends in participatory and receptive engagement with literary, visual, performing, crafts and decorative arts, spending on arts and cultural activities, as well as health and social data such as questions about self-rated health, physical activity, depressive symptoms, wellbeing, loneliness, and social connectedness
Reconstructing the tenor ‘pharyngeal voice’: a historical and practical investigation
Get PDFOne of the defining moments of operatic history occurred in April 1837 when upon returning to Paris from study in Italy, Gilbert Duprez (1806–1896) performed the first ‘do di petto’, or high c′′ ‘from the chest’, in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell. However, according to the great pedagogue Manuel Garcia (jr.) (1805–1906) tenors like Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794–1854) and Garcia’s own father, tenor Manuel Garcia (sr.) (1775–1832), had been singing the ‘do di petto’ for some time. A great deal of research has already been done to quantify this great ‘moment’, but I wanted to see if it is possible to define the vocal qualities of the tenor voices other than Duprez’, and to see if perhaps there is a general misunderstanding of their vocal qualities. That investigation led me to the ‘pharyngeal voice’ concept, what the Italians call falsettone. I then wondered if I could not only discover the techniques which allowed them to have such wide ranges, fioritura, pianissimi, superb legato, and what seemed like a ‘do di petto’, but also to reconstruct what amounts to a ‘lost technique’. To accomplish this, I bring my lifelong training as a bel canto tenor and eighteen years of experience as a classical singing teacher to bear in a partially autoethnographic study in which I analyse the most important vocal treatises from Pier Francesco Tosi’s (c. 1653–1732) treatise ‘Opinioni de' cantori antichi e moderni‘ (1723) to ‘Garcia’s Treatise on the Art of Singing’ (1924). I analysed the treatises for concepts of registration, timbre, breathing and resonance tuning. Subsequently, I researched contemporary accounts of several tenors to develop a ‘picture’ of their individual voices and to distinguish voice types, and then analysed multiple extracts from operas to determine range, tessitura, dynamic ability, and melodic contour markers for each singer. Using performance practice methodologies in the teaching studio, I was able combine all these elements to produce a valid and effective historically informed reconstruction of the historical tenor ‘pharyngeal voice’ and pedagogy
Translating twenty-first-century orchestral scores for the piano: transcription, reduction and performability
Get PDFThis research focusses on the technical and aesthetic issues surrounding the creation of piano reductions of the orchestral scores of two twenty-first-century piano concertos. It sets out a number of principles that might be applied more generally when producing comprehensive and musically convincing piano reductions of a range of contemporary orchestral scores.
Two-piano versions of piano concertos enable performers to learn the content of the work before they have a chance to rehearse it with a full orchestra and thus to gain a better understanding of the solo piano’s position within the overall texture. At their best, these arrangements can provide a satisfying alternative to the full orchestral performance. Since the early nineteenth century, piano arrangements of orchestral works have been instrumental in the process of studying and disseminating not only symphonic music but also other orchestral genres such as operas and concertos. In the first half of the twentieth century composers including Stravinsky, Ravel and Bartók produced their own piano reductions, of their instrumental concertos and symphonic works.
By the late twentieth century, major changes in both musical language and orchestration complicated the straightforward ‘reduction’ of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements for piano. For example, percussion has become a far more prominent element of the musical fabric, and the use of extended techniques on string, woodwind and brass instruments is now practised widely. It is thus becoming increasingly challenging and time-consuming to transcribe orchestral scores of contemporary works for piano in such a way that convincingly captures their essential aural features. Inevitably, fundamental properties of the original, such as timbral and dynamic variety, are easily lost in the process of transcription.
In my research, I investigate the possibilities of overcoming the acoustic and technical limitations of the piano as a vehicle for representing the modern orchestra and of creating practicable reductions that are both playable and faithful to the original acoustic impression. General observations and principles are demonstrated through the two case studies: full transcriptions of two stylistically contrasting twenty-first century piano concertos, by Mark-Anthony Turnage and James Dillon
Symptoms of performers' musculoskeletal issues
No full textA guide to treating musculoskeletal issues for performers. Developed as a collaboration between the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine and Healthy Conservatoires. Featuring: Sarah Upjohn, Physiotherapist
Treatment of performers' musculoskeletal issues
No full textA guide to treating musculoskeletal issues for performers. Developed as a collaboration between the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine and Healthy Conservatoires. Featuring: Sarah Upjohn, Physiotherapist
Discovering Robert Kahn
No full textA new disc from Ensemble Émigré features the world premiere recording of a quintet for clarinet, horn, cello and piano by the neglected German composer Robert Kahn
Night cubes: revisiting UK sound art’s popular and club histories
No full textAn article in the ‘Listening In’ column edited by B. Piekut.
This article is available open access at the 'Official URL' given below
I brevetti italiani a pianoforti nella seconda metà del XIX secolo [Italian patents to pianos in the 19th century]
No full textRobert Kahn: Leaves from the tree of life
Get PDFMusic by Robert Kahn recorded by Ensemble Émigré on Rubicon Classics (RCD1040):
Romanze (Gemma Rosefield, cello and Danny Driver, piano); selections from 'Leaves from the Tree of Life' (Danny Driver, piano); Lieder (Norbert Meyn, tenor and Christopher Gould, piano); Quintet in C minor (Emily Sun, violin; Flora Bain, horn; Ingrid Pearson, clarinet; Gemma Rosefield, cello; Danny Driver, piano).
Robert Kahn was born in Mannheim in 1865 and died in Biddenden, Kent in 1951. Kahn became an influential professor of music at the Berlin Hochschule and before that had his works performed by the Joachim Quartet and the Berlin Philharmonic under Hans von Bülow. He avoided large scale romantic forms and became famed for his songs, choral works, chamber music and the huge Tagebuch in Tönen, (Music from the Tree of Life) a collection of solo piano works, suites for piano and lieder that run to over 1100 pieces. Branded 'degenerate' by the National Socialists, he was thrown out of his teaching positions and, in 1937, he left for the UK, settling in Kent and composing right up to his death. This album is a fascinating introduction to a composer that political extremism and hatred tried and failed to erase.
Please see the video tab below for an introduction to the recording by Norbert Meyn, and a discussion of the Quintet by Ingrid Pearson.
This album received a 5-star review from BBC Music Magazine (see the downloads tab below). A review by Gramophone Magazine is also available (to registered Gramophone website users only) at: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/kahn-leaves-from-the-tree-of-life
Socioeconomic inequalities in arts engagement and depression among older adults in the United Kingdom: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
No full textObjectives: Arts engagement has been positively linked with mental health and well-being; however, socio-economic inequalities may be prevalent in access to and uptake of arts engagement reflecting on inequalities in mental health. This study estimated socio-economic inequality and horizontal inequity (unfair inequality) in arts engagement and depression symptoms of older adults in England. Trends in inequality and inequity were measured over a period of ten years.
Study design: This is a repeated cross-sectional study.
Methods: In this analysis, we used data from six waves (waves 2 to 7) of the nationally representative English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We estimated socio-economic inequality using concentration curves that plot the distribution of arts engagement and depression symptoms against the distribution of wealth. A concentration index was used to measure the magnitude of the inequality. Unfair inequality was then calculated for need-standardised arts engagement using a horizontal inequity index (HII).
Results: The study sample included adults aged 50 years and older from waves 2 (2004/2005, n = 6620) to 7 (2014/2015, n = 3329). Engagement with cinema, galleries and theatre was pro-rich unequal, i.e. concentrated among the wealthier, but inequality in depression was pro-poor unequal, i.e. concentrated more among the less wealthy. While pro-rich inequality in arts engagement decreased from wave 2 (conc. index: 0·291, 95% confidence interval 0·27 to 0·31) to wave 7 (conc. index: 0·275, 95% confidence interval 0·24 to 0·30), pro-poor inequality in depression increased from wave 2 (conc. index: −0·164, 95% confidence interval -0·18 to −0·14) to wave 7 (conc. index: −0·189, 95% confidence interval -0·21 to −0·16). Depression-standardised arts engagement showed horizontal inequity that increased from wave 2 (HII: 0·455, 95% confidence interval 0·42 to 0·48) to wave 7 (HII: 0·464, 95% confidence interval 0·42 to 0·50).
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that while socio-economic inequality in arts engagement might appear to have reduced over time, once arts engagement is standardised for need, inequality has actually worsened over time and can be interpreted as inequitable (unfair). Relying on need-unstandardised estimates of inequality might thus provide a false sense of achievement to policy makers and lead to improper social prescribing interventions being emplaced