Early Music Platform Meeting 2014

The Early Music Platform Meeting 2014 will take place at the Conservatorio di Musica “A. Pedrollo” in Vicenza, Italy, on 4-6 April.

The aim of the AEC Early Music Platform (EMP) is to bring together heads of departments, teachers and students in the field of early music to discuss relevant issues and to promote European cooperation in this field.

AEC Early Music Platform – a new departure

At the AEC Early Music Platform meeting in Bremen in April 2012, an important decision was taken to re-organize EMP meetings into an alternating pattern of Forums and Conferences. The AEC EMP Forum will be held in odd-numbered years (2013, 2015, etc.) and the AEC EMP Conference will be held in even-numbered years (2014, 2016, etc.).

EMP Conferences will put emphasis on the presentation of a selected theme viewed through a number of different aspects.

The EMP Forum will have two key features
a stronger emphasis on discussion among the delegates
a close integration with the profession by combining each Forum with a major early music festival

Early Music Platform Preparatory Working Group:
• Peter Nelson (Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen) – Chair
• Greta Haenen (Hochschule für Künste Bremen)
• Terrell Stone (Conservatorio di Musica “A. Pedrollo”, Vicenza)
• Elina Mustonen (Sibelius Academy, Helsinki)
• Thomas Drescher / Jeremy Llewellyn (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel)
• Francis Biggi (Haute École de Musique de Genève)
• Johannes Boer (Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag)

The AEC preparatory working groups members work on the preparation of AEC events on voluntary basis. The AEC Preparatory Working Groups are all formed by coopting active individuals in the relevant field of specialization within AEC member institutions. Proactivity, as well as geographical and gender balances are the applied criteria to guarantee the diverse and dynamic character of the groups, who should ideally recreate the diversity of AEC members institutions. Working group members are financially supported by their home institutions, which cover their travel and accommodation expenses to the working group meetings and to the actual event.

‘The Spirit of the Place’:
historically-informed performance in historically appropriate buildings, acoustics and cultural settings

Historically-informed performance aims to situate modern performances of early – as well as not so early – music within a context that takes account of all the factors affecting the performances that were closest to a particular work’s composition, or which were musically significant and well-documented revivals. As far as possible, historically-informed performers try to re-enter these original contextual ‘environments’ in all their dimensions: the instruments used and their numbers; temperaments, pitches, etc. employed; contemporaneous ideas on musical performance as contained in treatises; eyewitness accounts, and so on.

Among the factors forming the environments explored in historically-informed performance, ‘place’ – the geographical region, city, building, even room – associated with first or early performances of a work is one of great importance, and one where sometimes we are fortunate today still to be able to re-enter, in the most literal sense, the world of our musical predecessors. Just to stand for the first time in a building like the Thomaskirche in Leipzig or St. Marks in Venice is to feel an additional connection with the music we know to have been composed for these spaces. To be able actually to perform repertoire in its original ‘habitat’ is a privilege that cannot fail to convey numerous insights into what may have gone on in the minds of its original creators and performers.

We all know that ‘place’ embraces more than just the physical phenomenon of stones, bricks and mortar. A room or building responds to the light that falls into it and temperature of its surroundings in a myriad of subtle ways that influence the emotions we feel within it. But, more than that, we connect a place with its history – with what the stones have witnessed and heard, and how events and sounds have somehow permeated its very walls.

It is this deeper and more intuitive quality that we often refer to as the ‘spirit of the place’; and it is this relationship between a place, its spirit and its music that we shall be exploring at the Early Music Platform conference in Vicenza in 2014. The setting could hardly be more appropriate for such a theme. Vicenza, the city of the great architect Palladio, is a location where buildings famous both for their architectural beauty and for their history are to be found in as high a concentration as anywhere in the world. Part of our EMP conference will be held in Palladio’s famous Teatro Olimpico, while, on the second day, we shall venture outside the city itself to the Villa Contarini, where we shall experience the extraordinary acoustic effects of the ‘sala della chitarra rovesciata’ the ‘room of the upturned guitar’. In this unique space, architecture, sound and spirit are truly intertwined, in that the room is designed so that the sound of the performers, located at the highest level, is projected downwards to the audience below as though through the sound-hole of a guitar.

Speakers have been specially selected for their interest and expertise in questions concerning the ‘spirit of the place’ and the influence of this contextual dimension upon historically-informed musical performance. We hope that their insights and the extraordinary venues in which we shall be gathered will combine to make this a truly memorable and inspiring meeting of the Early Music Platform.

PROGRAMME AEC EARLY MUSIC PLATFORM 2014

Conservatorio di Musica “Arrigo Pedrollo” di Vicenza

‘The Spirit of the Place’:
historically-informed performance in historically appropriate buildings, acoustics and cultural settings

4th – 6th April 2014

Friday 4 April

14:00 – 15:00 Registration at Conservatorio Cloister

Informal Networking with refreshments

15:00 – 16:00 Sala Concerti

Music Introduction by students of the Conservatorio

Welcome words by

– Peter Nelson, EMP working group chairman
– Enrico Pisa, Director of the Conservatorio
– Gian Nico Rodighiero, President of the Conservatorio
– Maria Nevilla Massaro, President of the Consortium of Veneto Conservatories
– Jeremy Cox, AEC Chief Executive

Introductory speech by Don Giulio Cattin, Musicologist

16:00 –16:15 Music Performance by the Early Music Department at the Conservatorio in Vicenza

16:15– 17:30 Session 1: Keynote Presentation

The ‘Spirit of the Place’: ‘Ancient Spaces – Changed Societies: Performance Attitudes and Reception Then and Now’.

Presentation by Anthony Rooley, Lutenist, The Consort of Musicke Ensemble and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel

Moderated by Thomas Drescher, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

17:30 – 18:00 Guided tour of the Conservatorio
18:00 Transfer to Teatro Olimpico
18:30 – 19:30 Concert at the Teatro Olimpico
20:00 Dinner offered by the Conservatorio at Restaurant Antica Casa della Malvasia

Saturday 5 April

09:30 Registration continues at the Conservatorio Cloister

10:00 – 11:30

Music Introduction by students of the Consevatorio

Session 2a: Nuancing historically-informed performance I: How buildings and their acoustics not only influence our performance decisions on a practical level but can also form part of the web of information from which we build our understanding of early performance

Online Registration

Please click HERE to register to EMP 2014

Deadline early bird: 17th March
PLEASE NOTE THAT ONLINE REGISTRATION IS COMPULSORY TO ATTEND THE MEETING

Information on Fee Payment

To receive an invoice please mail events@aec-music.eu

Amount of the Registration Fee (per person)

The participation fee includes:

• conference documents
• participation to all plenary and parallel session
• participation to the networking moments
• possibility to display information brochures posters and materials about AEC members institutions
• Coffee Breaks
• One organized Dinner ( Friday 4)
• One organized Lunch (Saturday 5)
• One closing cocktail (Saturday 5)
• Concerts organized by the hosting institution
• Assistance by the AEC Office Staff

The participation fee will not be reimbursed for cancellations notified after March 17h

Bank details for payments

BNP Paribas Fortis
Kantoor Sint-Amandsberg, Antwerpsesteenweg 242
9040 Sint-Amandsberg, Belgium
Account Holder AEC-Music
IBAN: BE47 0016 8894 2980
SWIFT/BIC Code: GEBABEBB
VAT number/ N° TVA/ USt-IdNr. BE 503 980 425

When making the transfer, please clearly quote:

• Invoice number

or
• the code of the event (EMP 2014) and
• the last name of the participant
• the name of your institution (if fitting)
Example:, EMP2014, Smith, Gotham Conservatory

Documents

Report

report emp vicenza 2014.pdf

introduction by giulio cattin english summary.pdf

Practical information

final participants list vicenza.pdf

hotel and travel info 20142.pdf

Programme and Reader

conference reader emp forum 2014 vicenza.pdf

Slides

intervento introduttivo di giulio cattin.pdf