The European Platform for Artistic Research in Music EPARM 2022 took place on 7 – 9 April at the Royal Academy of Music in London and online, bringing together 135 participants from 18 countries: 91 enjoyed presential sessions and 44 joined the conference online.
This year’s edition, entitled “The Artistry of Artistic Research” was focused on the special insights that flow from practice, the relationships between craft and investigation, the exploratory engagements with repertoire and instruments and the impact of artistic practice.
The Royal Academy of Music was the perfect venue to host the ninth EPARM conference, where more than 35 sessions took place in 3 intense days full of thought provoking presentations and discussions.
During the keynote, entitled Mozart’s Unfinished Business, Timothy Jones, the Deputy Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, explored how some fundamental questions about the place of Mozart’s unfinished music within his completed work are resistant to conventional musicological tools but can be handled from the perspective of artistic research. After an outstanding concert performed by the Royal Academy of Music PhD students, the event featured a special evening programme called L8nite Performances where participants presented their research works in the form of performances that were themselves the outcomes of artistic research.
The second day of the event featured a variety of topics during the Parallel Sessions, where participants presented their research papers, which were selected by a peer review panel composed of the EPARM Working Group members. In the afternoon, Stefan Gies (AEC Chief Executive), Johan A Haarberg (Executive Officer Society for Artistic Research), Stephen Broad (EPARM WG Chair) and Jørn Mortensen (Dean School of Arts, Design and Media, Høyskolen Kristiania) participated in a Round Table discussion on Artistic Research Advocacy. In this session, chaired by Eirik Birkeland (AEC President), the members of the Round Table informed the attendees about the last updates on the Frascati Manual and presented the project ‘Challenging the Frascati Manual’. After that, the in-presence participants had the opportunity to propose issues on the theme of the Frascati Manual and explore these topics in the format of an Open Space discussion group in this session led by Stephen Broad (EPARM Working Group Chair).
On the last day of the conference, in presence and online participants had the opportunity to present their own projects and initiatives related to Artistic Research during the Information Forum. The EPARM 2022 came to an end with the Closing Session, where the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen was announced as the host for the EPARM 2023 edition, which will take place on 30 March – 1 April 2023.
