Tactile Paths is an artistic research project that aims to expand and articulate the feedback between notation and improvisation in experimental music.

Playing a musical instrument is generally considered to be a complex human behaviour involving the integration and coordination of a broad range of human functions such as perception, imagination, memory, information processing, emotion, communication, and dexterity.

In this research project the constituent elements of River Plate tango are investigated in order to decode how specific musical materials were organized and combined by four outstanding musicians: Osvaldo Pugliese, Horacio Salgán, Astor Piazzolla and Gustavo Beytelmann.

In this dissertation the author digs into the constituent elements of River Plate tango in order to decode how specific musical materials were organized and combined by four outstanding musicians: Pugliese, Salgán, Piazzolla and Beytelmann.

Artistic research has come of age, and with it the Orpheus Institute. Founded twenty years ago, the Institute’s purpose from the start has been to pursue research through the practice of musicians.

This research will focus on the relationship between the musical structure and musical time in the performance of 19th century music.

This research derives from the development of tools for algorithmic composition which extract pitch materials from sound signals, analyzing them according to their timbral and harmonic properties, putting them into motion through diverse rhythmic and textural procedures.

In our culture, vocal harmonics fuction as independent musical elements since only a few decades. Thresholds of the audible explores the changing relationship between singers, listeners and harmonics.

Music of Possibility is a personal account of what, for composer Richard Barrett, are the most consequential areas of twentieth- and twenty first-century musical innovation, and how, together with a web of technologies, cultures and politics, they have informed his creative practice.

Two events on Music and the Brain will be held in Leiden later this month.

What was the relationship between women and modern media in different parts of Asia in the 20th century? Under what historical and social conditions did women achieve prominence in popular music in Asia?

This research project proposes multiple paths towards the development of a performance practice in computer music. It starts with the author’s transition from traditional instrumentalist to electronic musician, assessing the roles of composer, performer and instrument builder as integrated in computer…

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Can the Stroh violin be reivented (recovered, exposed, revived and promoted) in the 21st century contemporary music?

The present study aims to establish and develop guidelines for effective use of the classical guitar’s scoring potential.

This thesis proposes multiple paths towards the development of a performance practice in Computer Music.

Improvisers in experimental music do not record their music in a conventional score, but in ever-changing 'tactile pathways'. This is the proposition put forward by researcher Christopher Williams. PhD defence 13 December.

What type of violones were used to perform Bach’s music in his time? And which octaves and tunings are appropriate for his stringed bass instruments?

This study, Calypso, The Trinidadian Experience, has sought to establish links between calypso music and the construction and maintenance of identities, and to locate the genre as a mechanism (or as part of a broader mechanism) that has exerted on-going social influence within Trinidadian society…

Although the guitar has been part of the classical music tradition for centuries, writing for the guitar remains a formidable challenge for many composers. Where orchestral instruments have a long history of scoring guides that help composers develop their craft, the number of studies dedicated to guitar…

An analysis of the airs sérieux contained in the RASB published by the house of Ballard during the period 1695 to 1715 and a search for greater performance authenticity.

Who were the main artists and producers who generated new forms of popular music? What was the music like that was produced by artists in particular urban settings? How were particular lifestyles articulated to identify new audiences and what does this reveal about the way popular music contributed…

Andrea Giolai defended his thesis on 3 May 2017.

What kind of attentional focus can enhance learning and performance for musicians?

In a series of six lectures, Jed Wentz, the Utrecht Early Music Festival’s artistic adviser, will acquaint you with subjects central to the developments in early music worldwide. First lecture starts 15 October!

This Spring we relaunched our free online course The Importance and Power of Music in our Society.

How can working with musical materials of the past influence and help shape an extemporaneous practice at the piano?

This research revolves around the philosophical and linguistic elements that naturally belong to the process of learning music scores, including complex contemporary repertoire distinguished by physically decoupled notations or physical polyphonic notations.

The Organ Art of the first female German concert organist and Bremen Cathedral organist and "historically informed music-making" as a starting point for a "third perspective".

Knowledge and culture subproject 2: "Language and number" of Leiden University Centre for Linguistics

What is the role of memory in contemporary music?

Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) launches the open online course Music & Society on Coursera to advance worldwide access to high-quality education. The course starts on January 9, 2017 and will be taught by Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen and drs. Hafez Ismaili M’hamdi.

Vertrekkend vanuit een communicatief perspectief en concentrerend op mediatiseringsprocessen, formuleert deze dissertatie een alternatief voor het probleem van equivociteit binnen de studie naar populaire muziek.

How does music affect a test subject’s brain? That was just one of the questions on the minds of the people who came to the LIBC public day to hear Rebecca Schaefer’s talk, as well as to hear from other top researchers about their investigations into music. The five woodwind players in the Calefax reed…

Baroque flautist Jed Wentz followed two years of dancing classes in order to develop the right feeling for the gestures required for the Baroque French opera genre ‘tragédie en musique’. In his dissertation, the links between gesture affect and rhythmic freedom in the performance of the tragédie en…

How to further develop and enrich one's own improvisation and composition skills and techniques, and to develop a framework to continually expand one's own performance repertoire.

In our culture, vocal harmonics function as independent musical elements since only a few decades. Thresholds of the audible explores the changing relationship between singers, listeners and harmonics.

The thesis presents a new perspective on Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (ca.1580-1651), who is nowadays only famous for his works for theorbo and lute, his remarkable output of vocal music of all genres being still mostly neglected from musicologists and performers.

The Dutch Student Orchestra (NSO) brings together more than a hundred of the best student musicians in the Netherlands. On 16 February the NSO will be performing in Leiden. Two Leiden members of the orchestra give a foretaste of the concert.

In 2016, Marcel Cobussen successfully applied for two trainee positions at ACPA, funded by the Humanities Research Traineeship Programme at Leiden University. One of the results, a multi-media essay 'In Search of the Public. Exploring Contemporary Performance Practices of Classical Music in The Netherlands'…

Towards a transdisciplinary and relational performance practice

How can we enhance inspiration in metric modal improvisation and subsequently, in modal composition?

The research projects takes a new perspective on Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (ca.1580-1651), who is nowadays only famous for his works for theorbo and lute, his remarkable output of vocal music of all genres being still mostly neglected from musicologists and performers.