Studie(s) en diploma's

Bachelor in de muziek - Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel

Master in de muziek - Conservatoire Royale de Liège

Master in Advanced Studies in Contemporary Music Performance - Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana

Doctor of Musical Arts in Contemporary Music Performance - University of California, San Diego

Huidige functieomschrijving

Assistent fluit - specialisatie hedendaagse muziek - Conservatoire Royal de Liège

Artistiek onderzoeker - Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen

Hoofd onderzoeksgroep CREATIE - Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen

Coördinator interdisciplinaire week NextDoors - Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen

Coach Creatieve Projecten - Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen

Freelance hedendaags fluitiste

Ervaring

Ik ben meer dan 10 jaar gericht werkzaam binnen de hedendaagse muziekscene, op meerdere vlakken.

Onderwijs: aan het Conservatoire Royal de Liège doceer ik hedendaagse fluit aan masterstudenten, waarbij we niet alleen focussen op moderne technieken, maar voornamelijk ook op een eigentijdse esthetiek en performance.
Aan het Koninklijk Conservatorium van Antwerpen ben ik  verantwoordelijk voor de coaching van Creatief Project - het afstudeerproject van de masterstudenten, waarbij ze uit hun comfortzone treden en een nieuwe performance van scratch leren organiseren.
Daarnaast sta ik ook in voor de coördinatie van de interdisciplinaire week, NextDoors, waarbij studenten van alle uitvoerende kunstrichtingen met mekaar leren creëren. Hierbij ligt de focus voornamelijk op interdisciplinair en inclusief samenwerken, zoals bijvoorbeeld tijdens de residentie van Un-Label (een mixed-abled performance compagnie).

Onderzoek: als hoofd van de onderzoeksgroep CREATIE, een groep dat zich uitsluitend richt op artistiek onderzoek binnen de hedendaagse performance, ben ik verantwoordelijk voor het begeleiden van onderzoekers en doctoraatsstudenten. Daarnaast organiseer ik het programma van de onderzoeksgroep, zoals conferenties, festivals en seminaries.
Tevens ben ik effectief lid van zowel de onderzoeksraad van ARIA (doctoraatsonderzoek in de kunsten aan de AUHA scholenkoepel) als de onderzoeksraad van de Schools of Arts Antwerpen.
Persoonlijk onderzoek was en is gericht op de solomuziek voor fluit van New Complexity-componist Brian Ferneyhough, gendergerelateerd onderzoek binnen hedendaagse muziek, het toegankelijk maken van hedendaagse partituren en onderzoek naar het muzikale mono-drama, waarbij interdisciplinariteit binnen het individu wordt onderzocht.

Relevante Publicaties

Doctoraatsthesis:

Confined walls of Unity: The reciprocal relation between notation and methodological analysis in Brian Ferneyhough's oeuvre for flute solo
ProQuest ID: Vanoeveren_ucsd_0033D_15758
http://dissertations.umi.com/ucsd:15758
Merritt ID: ark:/13030/m5zs7j5h
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4sc6x6h2
 

Boek:

Tomorrow's Music in Practice Today: a practical guide towards deciphering contemporary music
ISBN: 9789057188404
https://www.aspeditions.be/nl-be/book/tomorrows-music-in-practice-today/16518.htm

Artikels:

Cassandra's Dream Song: let's (not) talk about gender (ENG)
ISSN: 2184-1993
https://proa.ua.pt/index.php/impar/article/view/898

Cassandra's Dream Song: let's (not) talk about gender (NED)
ISSN 0779-7397
http://www.forum-online.be/nummers/lente-2018/cassandra-s-dream-song

Keynote:

Notation als Utopie: when 'unplayable' music become challenging 
Keynote for conference 'NOTATIONS 1: UTOPIA' at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse 2018.
https://www.academia.edu/37088441/Keynote_Notation_als_Utopie_When_unplayable_music_becomes_challenging

Relevante onderzoeken

Confined walls of unity: The reciprocal relation between notation and methodological analysis in Brian Ferneyhough’s oeuvre for solo flute

Brian Ferneyhough wrote six challenging and complex pieces for flute solo: Cassandra’s Dream Song (1970), Unity Capsule (1975-1976), Superscriptio (1981), Carceri d’Invenzione IIb (1985-1986), Mnemosyne (1986) and Sisyphus Redux (2011). Besides understanding Ferneyhough’s compositional vocabulary, every piece also requires a different practicing method. This dissertation is a musical, interpretational, analytical and motivating guide for flutists who desire playing Ferneyhough’s oeuvre. After many years of practicing and researching these six pieces, I developed a performance practice method that may help aspiring flutists in the future while discovering this rich oeuvre.

Where Cassandra’s Dream Song is a modern and complex transcription of an ancient myth, Superscriptio is a mathematically complex fight against the nature of the piccolo. Sisyphus Redux holds a real risk of experiencing Camus’ ‘philosophy of the absurd’, while Carceri d’Invenzione IIb confronts both the performer and the audience with the limits of unbearably high and loud registers. Unity Capsule puts the performer to proof because of the extreme length of such a complex piece, while Mnemosyne transcends the limits of information in notated music.

This performance practice method includes mythological, philosophical, mathematical and musical analyses, as well as a technical explanation and instrumental tricks that will enlarge the performer’s creativity and freedom in interpreting this complex oeuvre.

Cassandra’s Dream Song – Let’s (not) talk about gender

In this lecture I’m describing a non-gender related interpretation of Cassandra’s Dream Song. This ground-breaking piece by Brian Ferneyhough has been an interesting discussion topic for decades now. In the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, the contemporary music scene was dominated by male performers. This trend is also obvious in the early interpretations of the piece: a mathematical and analytically ‘correct’ interpretation was to be aimed for.
In the 90’s, female performers claimed their own  voice and the piece became the subject of a feminist movement.
Anno 2015, I think it is time for a more contemporary approach of the piece and music in general. I like to think of the Cassandra Complex as an ever changing global concept, adapted in many research fields.

Tomorrow’s music in practice today

As a researcher at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp – AP University College, it is my ambition to develop and document a general performance practice method for contemporary music, in order to make contemporary music scores accessible and understandable for every student at the conservatory in a pragmatic way.
The results of my doctoral research from 2016 at the University of California, San Diego, where I developed a specific performance practice method for the solo works for flute by ‘New Complexity’-composer Brian Ferneyhough, function as a starting point for this method. By re-analysing, collecting and explaining the different strategies, methods and tools I developed to decipher Ferneyhough’s music – but now specifically customised for performers without any or not much experience with contemporary music – I want to improve student’s independency regarding practicing and critically performing contemporary music on stage – whether it is for an exam in an academic context or for a public performance in a larger concert hall.

#DramaQueen

Composer Jason Eckardt wrote his first mono drama for flutist, The Silenced, in 2015.
The score is not only a musical challenge – it also requires a profound emotional narrative, dramatic elements, a basic choreography and scenography. 

In the process of researching the original dramatic monologues – literary texts, often written by women under a pseudonym in the 18^th century, that deal with different emotional point of views, seen from within one protagonist – a rather substantial question arose.

The abstract level of communicating concepts through music leaves the audience with a personal, but rather one-dimensional, interpretation, while the original dramatic monologues take the readers by hand and guide them through a purposefully critical and multi-dimensional journey. The same process can be seen in the performed mono dramas by Samuel Beckett, where the visuals guide the audience over a well-designed path.
Adding text, subtitles or straight forward explanatory program notes to the music undermines the strength and powerful qualities of the abstract score.

While researching interdisciplinary tools and methodologies, I started to establish a structural collaboration between my institution, the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, and Un-Label, an international, interdisciplinary collective that works towards inclusive and accessible performances.
Un- Label uses different inclusive tools in their performances, such as sign language or audio-description, which automatically strengthen the interdisciplinary qualities and emotional affects in a non-literal way. These communication tools are artistically imbedded in the performance, which means they are not a mere technical add-on, but rather a crucial part of the artistic process. 

Together with composer Jason Eckardt and Max Greyson, spoken word performer and writer within Un-Label, I am developing an extra emotional narrative to The Silenced, by artistically imbedding audio-description. 
The audio-description will emphasize an extra point of view within the mono drama, like in the original dramatic monologues, but without destroying the abstract and powerful qualities of the main parameter: the music.

Even more importantly, it will make the musical mono drama accessible for a specific group of people that now misses out on the whole concept because of their visual impairment.

Next steps in the research are the development of a new, accessible monodrama with composer Anahita Abbasi (2020) and the development of interdisciplinary tools for students.