“The Quodlibet” – AEC’s online and open forum for dialogue on all matters of Early Music

The Quodlibet is the AEC’s online and open forum for dialogue on all matters of Early Music and HIP, open to students, teachers, artists… It has been launched in 2021, during the pandemic, 3 meetings took place with Peter Van Heyghen, Barthold Kuijken and Paul Agnew. Please find HERE the page of the first Quodlibet Series. 

All members of the Early Music community are welcome to participate in the Quodlibet, and encouraged to share their views on the present challenges and opportunities faced by their institutions. Everyone’s voice shall be heard! The sessions are delivered on Zoom, they are recorded and published on the AEC’s Youtube channel.

The new Quodlibet series aims at:

  • addressing musical, educational, professional, and institutional issues in Early Music studies
  • engaging AEC members in interactive debates with artistic personalities in the Early Music education world
  • strengthen the connections of the Early Music players and students in Europe and beyond
  • facilitate discussions regarding topics such as HP/HIP – Historically Informed Performance.

 

Quodlibet #1 2022 – Thursday 13 October, 18:00-19:30 CET

The End(s) of Early Music:

The current state of Early Music departments across Europe

Early Music has come a long way in the last decades and currently plays a vital role in higher education institutions. The recent period has seen many new challenges for EM education: so, it is important to acknowledge the achievements thus far, but we must also reflect and plan for the future of Historically Informed Performance Practice across both theory and practice.

The main aim of this first meeting is to identify the needs and challenges of the participating EM departments. The members of the AEC’s Early Music Platform Task Force will present themselves and the REMA in more detail and open the discussion with the audience.

 

Quodlibet #2 2022 – 17 November, 18:00-19:30
The Singer of Tales: Music as Storytelling from the Middle Ages to the Present
Speakers: Marc Lewon, Katarina Livljanić

Moderator: Kelly Landerkin

As musicians, we are all storytellers in our own ways. Whether as singers or instrumentalists, in groups or as soloists, we seek to communicate and connect with our audiences. This is particularly, but not exclusively, vital in the performance of Early Music, especially of music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

How do we experience ourselves as communicators, and how do we offer narratives that can captivate audiences? As educators, how do we teach the art of storytelling? And what role do orality and unwritten transmission play in our music-learning and -making? These questions revolve around our understanding of the source and concepts of authenticity, but also touch upon performance practices that bring the music to life.

The aim of this second Quodlibet meeting is to discuss and reflect upon these ideas and share our own approaches together as a group. The session will kick off with input from two specialists on the topic, Marc Lewon and Katarina Livljanić.

Marc Lewon (Basel) is a lutenist and musicologist, director of Ensemble Leones, and professor of plectrum lute and medieval theory at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

Katarina Livljanić (Basel) is a singer and musicologist, director of Ensemble Dialogos, and professor of medieval voice at the SCB

Kelly Landerkin (Basel) is a singer, researcher, professor of Gregorian chant, chairperson of the management team of the SCB, and member of AEC’s Early Music Platform Task Force

 

Quodlibet #3 2022 – 15 December, 18:00 – 19:30

Early Music Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning Today with the Tools of the Past

Guest speaker: Barnabé Janin (CNSMD Lyon)

Hexachords, counterpoint, diminutions, bicinia, solfeggi, partimenti… the education of musicians in the past seems to have been quite different to the standards of the modern conservatoire. The central role played by improvisation, the intimate link between fluency in musical grammar and instrumental technique, the wide breadth of skills typically required from musicians: all of these seem to point to a very different musical world.

Since the beginning of the Early Music movement, the “tools of the past” have been documented by scholars and revived by practical musicians. The last couple of decades have seen a tremendous development of certain aspects of musical pedagogy. With these innovations increasingly applied in today’s teaching (formal as well as informal: in conservatories, music schools, summer courses or even in online media) a paradigmatic shift is appearing on the horizon.

Quodlibet #3 is connected to the conference “Early Music Pedagogy Then and Now” (Brescia, 9-11 December 2022), dedicated to musical pedagogy from the Classical Antiquity to the Renaissance, and featuring 30+ presentations by experts in the field. Barnabé Janin (keynote speaker at the conference) will share with us his reflections on the didactic challenge involved in the definition of an Early Music curriculum today. Everyone interested in the topic is welcome. Join the discussion!

Barnabé Janin teaches at the CNSMD of Lyon, performs medieval and Renaissance music with the ensemble Obsidienne (both as a singer and playing the fiddle), leads the ensemble Coclico and is the author of Chanter sur le Livre.

 

The programme has been organized by the AEC Early Music Task Force: Isaac Alonso de Molina (The Hague), Kelly Landerkin (Basel), Anton Steck (Trossingen), Claire Michon (Poitiers), Sara Primiterra (Coordinator of the Early Music activities at the AEC office) in the framework of the Creative Europe funded Project ARTEMIS.

Watch the introduction video about the AEC and its Early Music Platform prepared for the Early Music Summit 2020.

 

Video Recordings

Have you missed the three Quodlibets 2022? Watch the recordings of the fora hosted by the AEC Early Music Task force on the current status of Early Music departments in Europe. on Storytelling! See you in March for the Quodlibet serie 2023!