Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA)
About ACPA
The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) provides artistic research and education in the arts.
ACPA is a research institute of the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University and embodies the collaboration between Leiden University and the University of the Arts The Hague (the Royal Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Art). In addition to research in and through the arts, ACPA offers academic education for art students in The Hague and art education for students at Leiden University. Furthermore, the institute organizes cultural events where art and academia meet.
ACPA is located in the center of Leiden and is led by an academic director and a institute manager. At ACPA there are three professors, three university lecturers, additional external supervisors for PhD candidates, teachers and office staff members. ACPA has four emeriti professors. There are two honorary doctorates, awarded in 2005 and 2015.
Doctorate in the arts
ACPA has doctoral programmes in the arts. Currently, over sixty artist-researchers are engaged in doctoral research. ACPA is also associated with a number of research projects, such as Critical Making, which is funded by the NWO in the Smart Culture programme.
Education
Students from Leiden University and the University of the Arts The Hague can follow practical and academic arts education. ACPA’s education includes:
- Academic electives and minors in visual arts and music;
- The talent programmes Practicum Musicae at the Royal Conservatoire and Practicum Artium at the Royal Academy of Art for Leiden students;
- Educational exchange: the possibility for Leiden students to choose electives at the University of the Arts in The Hague and for art and music students to choose electives at Leiden University.
History
ACPA was founded in 2001 by Prof. Frans de Ruiter as the Faculty of Arts, to promote research in the arts and academic and practical arts education. From 2009, ACPA is a research institute under the Faculty of Humanities. Since the fall of 2016, the leadership has been transferred to a new management team.
Mission and Vision of ACPA
ACPA brings art practices and academic research together in a programme that enhances both cutting-edge practice and blue-sky research.
ACPA will advance to the central node in Europe for artistic research in visual arts, design, music, sound art and related art fields, attracting advanced scholars and practitioners and the most promising PhD candidates.
ACPA facilitates disciplinary and interdisciplinary artistic research at the PhD and postdoc level; research that originates from artistic practice, is guided by that practice, and brings about new artistic work and insights, which might have a bearing on who we are and how we relate to the world and other people. ACPA will thereby touch upon current practices and discourses in the art world, nationally and internationally, and connect to front line developments in social science, humanities and science and technology, within and outside Leiden University.
ACPA aims at students, artists and scholars curious about or active in the exciting domain of research in the arts, where art and academia meet. It offers a programme of seminars for BA, MA and PhD candidates at Leiden University and the University of the Arts The Hague. ACPA will thereby make a difference to the cultures of research and education at the Royal Conservatoire and Royal Academy in The Hague and to those at Leiden University. It will have an impact on society through transdisciplinary research, outreach activities and connections with local and national cultural institutes and initiatives.
Honorary Doctorates
In 2005 and 2015 the Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performings Arts awarded two Honorary Doctorates.
Dick Raaijmakers
Dick Raaijmakers (1 September 1930 – 4 September 2013) was a Dutch composer, theater maker and theorist. He was known as a pioneer in the field of electronic music and tape music. In addition, he realized numerous music theater pieces, art installations, and has published many theoretical essays. In 1966 he founded the electronic music studio at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague and lectured on electronic and contemporary music until his retirement in 1995. From 1991 he taught music theatre at the Image and Sound Interfaculty at the same conservatory.
In 2005 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Johan Wagenaar Foundation and an honorary doctorate from the University of Leiden.
William Christie
On February 9 2015 the Leiden University conferred the title of Honorary Doctor upon William Christie.
William Christie is a renowned harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist and teacher, and the foremost pioneer in the renewed appreciation of Baroque music in France, notably from the 17th and 18th century. His work, particularly on the theatrical repertoire of Lully, Rameau, Charpentier, Marais and Campra, has introduced this music to previously unimagined audiences, in regularly sold-out venues. Since 2002 he leads an "académie" for young singers, Le Jardin des Voix, and in the eighties and nineties he was the auctorintellectualis and conductor of great music theater productions of works by Lully and Charpentier by the CNSMD's of Paris and Lyon, the Guildhall School in London and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He also teaches at the Juilliard School in New York.
William Christie is Officier dans l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur.
Advisory Council
The Advisory Council consists of five representatives. The members are appointed by the Dean of Humanities on the recommendation of the academic director, taking a balanced representation into account, for a period of two years. Two seats in the Council are held by PhD students.
The Advisory Council meets at least once per term and offers solicited and unsolicited advice to the management team. The academic director shall, if necessary, provide the Council with information on various matters concerning the Institute. In any event, the council is given the opportunity to advise the academic director on the institution's financial policy, a proposed reorganization of the institute and other policy issues.
The ACPA Advisory Council consists of:
- Marcel Cobussen - Professor, Chair
- Rogier Schneemann - Education Officer
- Anja Groten - University Lecturer
- Valeria Mignaco - PhD
- Shadman Shahid - PhD