This conference explores musician’s long relationship with their instruments and instrumentalities, questioning issues of autonomy and agency in the apparent dichotomy between tools and musical expression. From the mechane of Greek theatres from which gods were suspended, to Mozart’s description of the Stein fortepiano’s knee-lever as “Die Maschine”, to the epoch-defining technologies of recording, sound synthesis, and algorithmic composition of more recent times, performers and composers have relied on mechanical means to create magic in their art.

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On October 31 Adilia Yip will publicly defend her thesis at the Antwerp Conservatoire.

On June 13 Elske Tinbergen will publicly defend her thesis at the University of Leiden.

On June 12 Elske Tinbergen will present the artistic outcomes of her research project in a concert at the Lutheran Church in Utrecht.

Music, and the arts in general, has always been a source of inspiration in times of crisis; it establishes rapport between peoples and cultures and serves as a laboratory for the creation and expression of cultural values.
Dissolving Borders invited proposals that will investigate and problematize how musicians create political spaces that transcend demarcated space and culture, on scales both global and local, macro and micro. We seek work that engages with the complex realities of inter-cultural contact, including issues of migration, communication, integration, acceptance, and symbiosis. As the world experiences radical displacement during an era of unprecedented enforcement of borders, we seek earnest engagements with the vibrant history of music’s entanglement with these issues. Looking to past musics, musicians, and scholarship, we encourage imaginations of music’s current and future role as a cultural and political agent.

On February 1st Lucia D'Errico will publicly defend her thesis at the Orpheus Institute.