Sound & Score brings together music expertise from prominent international researchers and performers exploring the intimate relations between sound, score and notation, and the artistic possibilities that this relationship yields for performers, composers and listeners.

On the 13th of October, Cesko Voeten successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Cesko on this achievement!

How does sound mediate our relationship to environment? And how can contemporary multidisciplinary art practices articulate and explore this relation between sound and environment?

This doctoral trajectory explores sound, its image and its role in relating humans and our technologies to the environment.

From October 2, ACPA alumnus and sound artist Budhaditya Chattopadhyay will exhibit his sound installation Expanded Object.

How can we understand the drum-set – and thus drummer – as technological? How have technological developments affected change in drum-set performance and drum-set construction? Are the relationships between new technologies and the drummer symbiotic, or one way? To what extent are instruments and (reactive)…

Promotor: Carel J. ten Cate, Co-Promotor: Hans W. Slabbekoorn

Various sounding board groups give their opinion about the course of the programme. Their vision is important, since they already have knowledge about and experience in (innovation in) education. Some of these sounding board groups are also collaboration partners within the University at the same ti…

Worlds of sound is important for everyone who is interested in listening to music of the 20th century or for anyone involved in studying or performing contemporary music. The central question is how to interpret music in case the performer is not willing to depend on personal taste or conventions.

Promotor: Prof.dr. A. Achucarro

Promotor: A. Achúcarro, Co-Promotor: G.A. Palma

Promotor: C.J. ten Cate, Co-promotor: H.W. Slabbekoorn

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…

Do humans and zebra finches share cognitive mechanisms that are important for speech perception?

How can we let the sonic speak in public urban environments? What is the function and position of sound in our daily encounters with urbanity? How do we experience cities aurally? This was the topic of Marcel Cobussen's inaugural lecture on November 28th, 2016.

Ambient sound is a standard term used by sound practitioners to denote the site-specific background sound component that provides a characteristic atmosphere and spatial information in a sound work.

Besides teaching BA and MA classes at Leiden University and supervising PhD candidates doing artistic research both in Leiden and Ghent, a third major component of Marcel Cobussen’s activities is (of course) doing research.

To what extent is sound a stressor to fish? And are behavioural and physiological phenotypes equally sensitive to disturbance by noise pollution?

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

Developing a model of sound organisation which drives the focus of the listener to the way inherent conditions in the production and circulation of sound media technology constitute our sound apprehension

Imagined Voices deals with a form of composition, music with on-screen text, in which the dynamic between sound, words and visuals is explored.

The current project aims to revive the idea that sound inventories are structured according to a small set of universal principles by applying insights from current phonological theory and by making use of modern database technologies and data assessing methodologies.

ACPA Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy Marcel Cobussen and ACPA PhD Supervisor Vincent Meelberg are, together with composer and Simon Fraser University Professor Barry Truax, editors of the recently published Routledge Companion to Sounding Art.

Promotor: Prof.dr. S. Haring

Audible Absence: Searching for the Site in Sound Production

Composer Paul Craenen (1972) is actually a pianist, but as part of his PhD ceremony, he performed a composition on PVC pipes. Craenen studies the position and role of the body in music. ‘I am interested in what precedes the resulting sound’.

In this dissertation, electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioural measures are used to investigate how allophonic tonal variants and sub-phonemic features are processed during Mandarin and Dutch speech production, visual processing of written words and reading aloud.

Promotores: C. J. ten Cate; M. A. Ainslie. Co-promotor: W. Slabbekoorn

After the Summerbreak the Honours Class entitled The Sounding City will be offered, in collaboration with ACPA and the Science Faculty. The class instructors will be Prof. Marcel Cobussen and Edwin van der Heide. They state that one of their main objectives for this course is "to develop awareness…

How can we improve the everyday sounds of the city? In his inaugural lecture on 28 November Marcel Cobussen, Professor of Auditory Culture, advocates using the expertise of sound artists to raise the quality of acoustic environments in cities.

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) is hosting an international conference on November 29 and 30 at Gravensteen on the role and position of sounds and sounding arts in public urban environments. This unique conference aims to increase the attention to the role of the sound, sound design,…

How do you experience a quieter city? Or a silenced city? Our cities are normally filled with noise. The corona crisis has changed that. Few or no people on the streets, shops closed, much less traffic, hardly any planes coming over. The soundscape of the city has completely changed. Soundtrackcity,…

Do the sounds that surround you as you cycle through the city sometimes annoy you? Don’t worry, because we can actively change the situation, says sound expert Edwin van der Heide. Students in his Honours Class are actively shaping the sound of the city.

Call for Papers for the Conference to be held on November 29th and 30th at Leiden University and coordinated by Prof. dr. M.A. (Marcel) Cobussen, involving Keynote speakers Salomé Voegelin, Gascia Ouzounian, Holger Schulze, and Jean-Paul Thibaud.

We are developing the conceptual framework, which is new to this taxonomic group, and evaluate the current state of the art with respect to all critical parameters and transfer functions for a fully developed Population Consequences of Acoustic Disturbance (PCAD) model.

Promotor: Prof.dr. A. Achucarro, Co-Promotor: J.W. van Holten

A new computer simulation shows the promising possibilities of the booming field of topology. Smartly designed mechanical structures carry sound exclusively one way and are immune to fabrication errors. Publication on 17 July in Nature Physics.

Using speech analysis to resolve crimes. That's what Meike de Boer (26) is aiming to do with her PhD research. 'By analysing how a person pronounces "eh", you can help identify that person; hopefully even when that person speaks different languages.'

Comparison between babies and song-birds when they are learning a non-existent language—a study of this kind has never been tried before. But this is what Claartje Levelt, Carel ten Cate (Leiden University) and Jelle Zuidema (University of Amsterdam) are attempting.

We are excited to announce the book publication (currently in press) of our alumnus Dr. Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: The Auditory Setting Environmental Sounds in Film and Media Arts.

On the 1st of October a new project funded by the Joint Industry Programme (JIP) started at the IBL on the potentially negative effects of sound on fish. Behavioural biologist and bioacoustic specialist Dr. Hans Slabbekoorn leads the international research team.

Exhibition

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen, A. Parnachev

Distance / Fiction is a sound installation that deals with the ways listening is entwined with processes and techniques of sound mediation.

Wouter Halfwerk (IBL) received a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research for his research project on the influence of man-made noise on foraging birds.