Brief outline of the symposium and details of the workshops, February 2013

Full conference programme provided under News and Events

On the 8th & 9th of February, the lecture recitals and papers will be given in the Parry Room and the Recital Hall at the Royal College of Music, London.

Day 1, Friday, 8th February

Registration 8.30-9.0am

9.0-9-15 Welcome address

9.15-10.0 Keynote speaker: Professor Roger Kneebone from Imperial College, London

10.0-6.30 Papers and lecture recitals

 

 Day 2, Saturday, 9th February

Continuation of papers & lecture recitals  9.0am – 6.30pm

 

Evening - 7.30 Conference dinner: Carlucios, Fulham rd

Day 3, Sunday, 10th February in the Britten Theatre at the Royal College of Music: continuation of paper & lecture recitals from 9.0-11.0

11.0-11.30 break

 

 

Background

Performance science has grown considerably during the last ten years. But despite the potential for this field to inform educational and professional practice across the arts, its application in the field of piano performance has been largely neglected. This neglect is not surprising, since the area is steeped in traditional methods of performance practice, and suffers also from a mind/body dualism.  These workshops will suggest that skilled pianism cannot be achieved exclusively by pursuing the traditional route, in which the student and the teacher sit side by side throughout the piano lesson.  It may be better achieved by including some collaboration with other disciplines such as operative surgery, dance, neuroscience and musical analysis.

Morning Work shop 11.30-1.0 :The Keyboard and the Scalpel

In this workshop, the distinguished surgeon Roger Kneebone will explore unexpected parallels between the worlds of piano performance and operative surgery.  As he writes ‘both demand years of preparation, and both require dexterity, memorisation and performance under pressure’.  After a brief illustrated introduction to what surgeons do and how they do it, the workshop will explore how an understanding of this closed world may cast light on pianistic training and performance. Issues will include memorisation, rehearsal, performance anxiety and strategies for recognising and remedying errors during recital and ensemble performance.  The workshop will involve discussion by participants, aiming for an interactive and stimulating sharing of views, insights and perspectives’.

Lunch Break 1-0-20pm

 

Afternoon Workshop 2.0.- 4.0: Mirror Neurons:imitation & emulation in piano performance

In 2004, Rizzolatti writes ‘every time an individual observes an action performed by another individual, neurons that represent that action are activated in the premotor cortex. The observer ‘‘understands’’ someone else’s actions because the evoked motor representation corresponds to that generated internally during action execution’.  This research amongst others, Craighero et al (2007), (Haggard (2008), and Iacoboni (2008), Ramchanderan (2011), will be drawn upon, because it may underpin the approach taken in this workshop in which a music analyst, a choreographer and dancer from the Royal Ballet will collaborate in assisting the pianist to develop a greater control of the pacing of the ebb and flow of Clair de lune through imitation and emulation of the dancer’s movements.

Tea 4.0-4.30

 4.30-5.30

A short piano recital will be given by the Russian pianist, Sofya Gulyak, the first, and only woman to win the Leeds international Piano Competition.


Scientific Committee

Jane Ginsborg, Royal Northern College of Music.

Anthony Gritten, Head of Undergraduate Programmes, Royal Academy of Music.

Eckart Altenmuller, Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine. Hanover University, Germany.

Cristina Gerling, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Dr. Werner Goebl, Institute of Musical Acoustics (Wiener Klangstil), Vienna.

Megumi Masaki, Brandon University, Canada.

Rosie Perkins,  Royal College of Music, London