Eve Klein
The University of Queensland, Australia, School of Music, Faculty Member
- Sound Recording, Classical Music, Opera, Feminist Theory, Musicology, Popular Music, and 21 moreSound studies, Music Performance, Performance Studies (Music), Music Technology, Popular musicology, Music Technology in Music Education, Audio Production, Virtual Reality (Computer Graphics), Augmented Reality, Augmented Reality Art, Human Computer Interaction, Installation Art: Immersive, Immersive Audio, Popular Music Studies, History of Sound Recording, Sound Art, Sound Design, Audio Engineering, Field Recording, Mobile Augmented Reality, and Interaction Designedit
This chapter considers Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé’s operatic- rock album Barcelona (1988) as a logical extension of Mercury’s fascination with operatic musical devices, narrative structures and iconography. With this album,... more
This chapter considers Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé’s operatic- rock album Barcelona (1988) as a logical extension of Mercury’s fascination with operatic musical devices, narrative structures and iconography. With this album, two global superstars from divergent musical genres met and brought their musical perspectives into genuine collaboration. However, Barcelona, like other popular explorations of opera, has remained largely unexamined because it sits somewhat uncomfortably across art and popular music, agitating anxieties and authenticities as they operate in both terrains.
This chapter will investigate how such anxieties became established by unpacking the circulation of opera within popular recording cultures as elite reproductions of operatic repertory, as ‘crossover’ music and through its appropriation by popular musicians. This chapter will then conduct an analysis of the Barcelona collaboration that situates its creation in the context of Mercury’s musical trajectory. Special consideration will be paid to the musical style established in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (1975). Comparing previous performances to the Barcelona album indicates that Mercury and Caballé largely did not attempt to emulate each other’s vocal style, but reproduced their existing vocal technique. Despite Barcelona exploring musical and vocal terrain already cultivated by Mercury in previous releases, critics had considerable difficulty viewing Barcelona as a credible exploration of rock and opera, precisely because Mercury and Caballé occupied the same creative space. Operatic critics aligned Caballé’s performance with crossover singing due to the apparent simplicity of the Barcelona songs. Rock critics heard Caballé’s operatic voice and Barcelona’s orchestral accompaniment and viewed it as ‘weird’ and ‘difficult to handle’ (Gage, 2012). As the first recording bringing together genuine international stars from their respective genres (see Promane, 2009, p. 140), Mercury and Caballé’s collaboration is problematic precisely because it bridged the popular/elite divide from both directions simultaneously.
This chapter will investigate how such anxieties became established by unpacking the circulation of opera within popular recording cultures as elite reproductions of operatic repertory, as ‘crossover’ music and through its appropriation by popular musicians. This chapter will then conduct an analysis of the Barcelona collaboration that situates its creation in the context of Mercury’s musical trajectory. Special consideration will be paid to the musical style established in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (1975). Comparing previous performances to the Barcelona album indicates that Mercury and Caballé largely did not attempt to emulate each other’s vocal style, but reproduced their existing vocal technique. Despite Barcelona exploring musical and vocal terrain already cultivated by Mercury in previous releases, critics had considerable difficulty viewing Barcelona as a credible exploration of rock and opera, precisely because Mercury and Caballé occupied the same creative space. Operatic critics aligned Caballé’s performance with crossover singing due to the apparent simplicity of the Barcelona songs. Rock critics heard Caballé’s operatic voice and Barcelona’s orchestral accompaniment and viewed it as ‘weird’ and ‘difficult to handle’ (Gage, 2012). As the first recording bringing together genuine international stars from their respective genres (see Promane, 2009, p. 140), Mercury and Caballé’s collaboration is problematic precisely because it bridged the popular/elite divide from both directions simultaneously.
Research Interests:
The histories of sound recording and popular music are inextricable. This special issue of IASPM@Journal will highlight a range of philosophies, mythologies, ideologies and discourses that address the study of popular music in relation to... more
The histories of sound recording and popular music are inextricable. This special issue of IASPM@Journal will highlight a range of philosophies, mythologies, ideologies and discourses that address the study of popular music in relation to sound recording. The ways in which musicians produce sound are shaped by narratives that include timbral qualities of musical instruments,
recording session procedures, the production of sonic trends, as well as the aesthetics, value and iconicity of recording technologies. Such narratives affect how songwriting and sound recording are understood and influence the processes and techniques employed by musicians. They are also used as powerful drivers of new products: plug-ins, amps, consoles and outboard equipment, which purport to bring the listener closer to that elusive sound. We are particularly interested in contributions that focus on the relationship between sound recording and popular music that include, but not are limited to, the following themes:
⎯ Musical aesthetics, song structures, and song forms.
⎯ Philosophical approaches to songwriting and studio production.
⎯ The construction of fantastical narratives surrounding specific recording sessions, production processes or a recordist’s “sound”.
⎯ The relationship between analogue and digital recording technologies in musical practices.
⎯ The emulation and commodification of analogue production processes, signal chains, equipment or instruments via plugins and other digital products.
⎯ Discourses of fidelity and loudness relating to media such as radio and networked mobile audio.
⎯ Working practices and decision processes within the recording studio.
Contributions that emphasize other philosophical, mythological, or ideological interrelationships between popular music and sound recording will also be considered.
Contributors are encouraged to submit a 300-word proposal plus references by Friday the 11th of December 2015, to:
Dr Samantha Bennett (Australian National University, Australia)
samantha.bennett@anu.edu.au
Dr Eve Klein (University of Queensland, Australia)
e.klein@uq.edu.au
The submission deadline for articles is the 31st of March 2016. Publication is scheduled for late 2016. Please register as an Author and submit online, ensuring you are a current member of IASPM (instructions can be found below).
Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music
www.iaspmjournal.net
recording session procedures, the production of sonic trends, as well as the aesthetics, value and iconicity of recording technologies. Such narratives affect how songwriting and sound recording are understood and influence the processes and techniques employed by musicians. They are also used as powerful drivers of new products: plug-ins, amps, consoles and outboard equipment, which purport to bring the listener closer to that elusive sound. We are particularly interested in contributions that focus on the relationship between sound recording and popular music that include, but not are limited to, the following themes:
⎯ Musical aesthetics, song structures, and song forms.
⎯ Philosophical approaches to songwriting and studio production.
⎯ The construction of fantastical narratives surrounding specific recording sessions, production processes or a recordist’s “sound”.
⎯ The relationship between analogue and digital recording technologies in musical practices.
⎯ The emulation and commodification of analogue production processes, signal chains, equipment or instruments via plugins and other digital products.
⎯ Discourses of fidelity and loudness relating to media such as radio and networked mobile audio.
⎯ Working practices and decision processes within the recording studio.
Contributions that emphasize other philosophical, mythological, or ideological interrelationships between popular music and sound recording will also be considered.
Contributors are encouraged to submit a 300-word proposal plus references by Friday the 11th of December 2015, to:
Dr Samantha Bennett (Australian National University, Australia)
samantha.bennett@anu.edu.au
Dr Eve Klein (University of Queensland, Australia)
e.klein@uq.edu.au
The submission deadline for articles is the 31st of March 2016. Publication is scheduled for late 2016. Please register as an Author and submit online, ensuring you are a current member of IASPM (instructions can be found below).
Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music
www.iaspmjournal.net
Research Interests: Music, Musicology, Mythology, Philosophy, Music Technology, and 14 morePopular Music Studies, Popular Music, Ideology, Sound studies, Sound, Philosophy of Music, Music Aesthetics, Sound Aesthetics, Popular musicology, Sound Engineering, Sound Recording, History of Sound Recording, Historical Musicology, and Popular Music and Culture
This article is concerned with the ways virtual instrument software simulates acoustic human performance. In particular, it examines two case studies – virtual orchestral instruments and virtual singing instruments – to consider how their... more
This article is concerned with the ways virtual instrument software simulates acoustic human performance. In particular, it examines two case studies – virtual orchestral instruments and virtual singing instruments – to consider how their design and implementation seek to express human music performance by adopting the micro and macro sonic variations of timing, pitch, dynamics, articulation, ambience, and other limitations imposed by the physical relationship between the player and the instrument. Baudrillard considers that " simulation threatens the difference between the 'true' and the 'false', the 'real' and the 'imaginary' " (1994: 3). By feigning the acoustic markers of expressive human musical performance, virtual instrument designers and composer-users encourage the listener to produce, in themselves, the experience of hearing an orchestra or singer. Users also contribute to the recontextualization of human performance by feeding back into the cultures and development cycles of virtual instrument software, where sonic gestures are recurrently refreshed. The construction of virtual instruments as devices of musical expressivity is, therefore, an evolving, mutually constructed, and performative endeavour.
Research Interests:
The purpose of this article is to discuss how nostalgia for classical music performance traditions has shaped classical recording practice, and also how the use of sound recording technologies is challenging these same nostalgic... more
The purpose of this article is to discuss how nostalgia for classical music performance traditions has shaped classical recording practice, and also how the use of sound recording technologies is challenging these same nostalgic tendencies. It does so by drawing together key academic literature on classical music recording practice and classical music performance in order to demonstrate their interrelationship. In particular this article looks at how virtuosic live performance is used to reify the tradition of classical music itself, and how this has oriented twentieth century classical sound recording practice around a single aesthetic paradigm, the reproduction of a “concert hall”-like listening experience. An equivalent acoustic construction does not exist in popular music genres, which have adopted variable mix aesthetics in recordings since the 1960s. The article then examines two case studies, and uses them to illustrate the tensions that arise when performance and technology intersect within the classical genres. The case studies are virtual orchestras and YouTube ensembles, each of which problematise traditional notions of classical music performance. What these case studies show is that performance virtuosity, as a marker of quality, has been unsettled by the accessibility of orchestral sonorities and the drive towards participatory cultures of classical music.
Research Interests:
Classical music has resisted incorporating music technologies into its mainstream compositional practices, in part because technology allows greater access to the techniques and timbres associated with virtuosic human acoustic... more
Classical music has resisted incorporating music technologies
into its mainstream compositional practices, in part because
technology allows greater access to the techniques
and timbres associated with virtuosic human acoustic performance.
However, classical music composition and production
can be enabled by music technologies, and they offer
an effective vehicle for women to test and occupy the role
of composer, performer and producer.
This paper outlines how home-studio music production technologies
were used to compose and stage The Pomegranate
Cycle (2010, 2013). The Pomegranate Cycle was
composed, recorded, performed and produced by a female
opera singer using consumer-level recording technologies.
This self-directed methodology is unique in opera, providing
a model for other singer-composers.
into its mainstream compositional practices, in part because
technology allows greater access to the techniques
and timbres associated with virtuosic human acoustic performance.
However, classical music composition and production
can be enabled by music technologies, and they offer
an effective vehicle for women to test and occupy the role
of composer, performer and producer.
This paper outlines how home-studio music production technologies
were used to compose and stage The Pomegranate
Cycle (2010, 2013). The Pomegranate Cycle was
composed, recorded, performed and produced by a female
opera singer using consumer-level recording technologies.
This self-directed methodology is unique in opera, providing
a model for other singer-composers.
Research Interests:
Today, most people listen to classical music through recorded media, rather than attending live performances. Live performances are special – not everyday – occurrences. How classical music utilises recording technologies is therefore... more
Today, most people listen to classical music through recorded media, rather than attending live performances. Live performances are special – not everyday – occurrences. How classical music utilises recording technologies is therefore integral to its creative future.
This paper seeks to provoke discussion around the way Western classical music’s historical repertoire is represented on mainstream commercial recordings. It does so by outlining how the presentation of virtuosic repertory performances became reliant upon ‘faithfully’ constructed recordings throughout the twentieth century, and by exploring several present-day case studies where these ‘faithful’ approaches to recording production are reproduced by leading classical music organisations.
The pursuit of ‘faithful’ representations of repertory performance on mainstream recordings has led to the generation of a singular aesthetic standard on recorded media outputs. The objective is to place the listener in the concert hall’s ‘best seat’ while maintaining the integrity of the acoustic musical performance. This approach is not commonly replicated in popular music genres where the relationship between recorded media and live performance is more complex. Popular artists more freely re/configure recorded musical aesthetics and approaches to performance styles, with techniques remaining variable both within and across popular music genres (see: Moorefield 2010; Chanan 1995). By standardising aesthetics towards a singular ideal on recorded media, classical music repertory may have become ‘boring’ for listeners who utilise recorded media as the primary benchmark for interpreting the presentation of live performances. However, by understanding the relationship between virtuosity and fidelity, this article encourages classical music practitioners to make conscious choices about the presentation of performance in recorded media and elsewhere as a means of revitalising audience expectations.
This paper seeks to provoke discussion around the way Western classical music’s historical repertoire is represented on mainstream commercial recordings. It does so by outlining how the presentation of virtuosic repertory performances became reliant upon ‘faithfully’ constructed recordings throughout the twentieth century, and by exploring several present-day case studies where these ‘faithful’ approaches to recording production are reproduced by leading classical music organisations.
The pursuit of ‘faithful’ representations of repertory performance on mainstream recordings has led to the generation of a singular aesthetic standard on recorded media outputs. The objective is to place the listener in the concert hall’s ‘best seat’ while maintaining the integrity of the acoustic musical performance. This approach is not commonly replicated in popular music genres where the relationship between recorded media and live performance is more complex. Popular artists more freely re/configure recorded musical aesthetics and approaches to performance styles, with techniques remaining variable both within and across popular music genres (see: Moorefield 2010; Chanan 1995). By standardising aesthetics towards a singular ideal on recorded media, classical music repertory may have become ‘boring’ for listeners who utilise recorded media as the primary benchmark for interpreting the presentation of live performances. However, by understanding the relationship between virtuosity and fidelity, this article encourages classical music practitioners to make conscious choices about the presentation of performance in recorded media and elsewhere as a means of revitalising audience expectations.
Research Interests:
Historical repertory commonly uses threats to a women's virtue, her person, or her death as a narrative device to produce the moral or emotional climax in opera. The fate of these female characters reinforces patriarchal notions of... more
Historical repertory commonly uses threats to a women's virtue, her person, or her death as a narrative device to produce the moral or emotional climax in opera. The fate of these female characters reinforces patriarchal notions of femininity and acceptable gender behaviour, or alternatively is intended to reveal the complexity of feeling experienced by male characters. This is problematic because historical opera forms the overwhelming majority of all operatic works staged by major opera houses. This article documents the way The Pomegranate Cycle (2010) confronts archaic representations of women in opera and models a new narrative trajectory of healing and growth for its central female character, Persephone. It examines key choices in the works story, structure and power-relations embedded in vocal timbres as a mean of commenting on problems in the operatic tradition and its historical development. In doing so, this article seeks to encourage the production of new operatic works, especially works where female characters exhibit autonomy, and where female singers have more choice and agency over the kinds of women they portray through their performing bodies.
Research Interests:
At the beginning of the twentieth century compilation recordings of operatic arias by singers such as Enrico Caruso began to decontextualise operatic songs from their narrative context. However, these early popular recordings of operatic... more
At the beginning of the twentieth century compilation recordings of operatic arias by singers such as Enrico Caruso began to decontextualise operatic songs from their narrative context. However, these early popular recordings of operatic song maintained a relationship to the tradition of opera, extending the reach of the metaphorical opera house into domestic listening environments. In the second half of the twentieth century opera left the opera house behind. This movement was driven by experimental composers such as Luciano Berio, Philip Glass and Robert Ashley who each addressed the framing of opera inside the opera house, and the kinds of vocalities which define opera. Yet it was Queen's smash hit "Bohemian Rapsody" from A Night at the Opera (1975) which thrust operatic forms upon 1970s rock audiences and the momentum generated from rock opera carried through into other music styles. This paper will provide a brief introduction to some of the landmark recordings where opera was appropriated into electronica, hip hop, rock and pop music from 1980 to 2005. The intention of this mapping is not to be exhaustive, rather it seeks to highlight how the appropriation of opera's structure, narratives, vocalities, and performance conventions by popular music artists has been used to make political, cultural or artistic statements. In these recordings, opera is positioned against popular music styles as a signifier of the gargantuan extremities of canonical European art culture. When utilised in popular music, opera becomes a site of political, class and identity conflict, an exotic object of pleasure, and a way of rupturing conventional popular music vocal styles. Through recordings by artists such as Nina Hagen and Diamanda Gal s, opera has been revitalised, with alien divas and sampled sirens influencing contemporary culture in ways which most classical singers can only dream about.
Research Interests: Popular Music and Opera
Academic considerations of identity in migrant and marginalised communities often highlight language as a key cultural nexus. Anne-Marie Fortier has argued that the loss of “mother-tongues” in emigrant cultures can “signal the loss of... more
Academic considerations of identity in migrant and marginalised communities often highlight language as a key cultural nexus. Anne-Marie Fortier has argued that the loss of “mother-tongues” in emigrant cultures can “signal the loss of some originary self”
(Fortier, 2000: 84). The archipelago of Malta has a long history of occupation and colonialisation and up until 1934 Italian and English were both recognised as the official languages rather than Maltese. Malta’s history, then, reflects the systematic shaping of
national identity via language. This shaping continued through government sponsored migration programs in the decades following World War II[1] which sought to address
Malta’s socio-economic disparities. Fifty years on, the impact of broadly based displacement is being negotiated in migrant communities and realised through cultural performances such as folk music known as ghana which requires the use of ‘pure’ and
‘archaic’ Maltese. However performance of ghana in Australian Maltese communities highlights the dwindling of the Maltese language in second and subsequent generations.
In July 2004 the Maltese Historical Association held an evening entitled a ‘History of the Maltese Language and its Role in Contemporary Australia’ with the aim of providing a space to discuss my initial research into the use of language in ghana performance (see Klein, 2003; Klein, 2005). Polarised opinions emerged, some that valourised the continuation of the Maltese language, and others that deemed the task “futile” (Maltese
Historical Association, 2004: 13). Following this discussion, The Maltese Herald, an Australian publication, reported the talk and finished with the opinion that: “The solution to this problem falls back to the use of English. Quite a dilemma!”(ibid). Building from
the experiences of the Maltese Community in Melbourne, Australia, this article seeks to analyse the “dilemma” that expatriate communities face at the loss of language as a
distinct marker of culture and identity, with particular emphasis on the re-location of identity and class conflicts through language.[2]
(Fortier, 2000: 84). The archipelago of Malta has a long history of occupation and colonialisation and up until 1934 Italian and English were both recognised as the official languages rather than Maltese. Malta’s history, then, reflects the systematic shaping of
national identity via language. This shaping continued through government sponsored migration programs in the decades following World War II[1] which sought to address
Malta’s socio-economic disparities. Fifty years on, the impact of broadly based displacement is being negotiated in migrant communities and realised through cultural performances such as folk music known as ghana which requires the use of ‘pure’ and
‘archaic’ Maltese. However performance of ghana in Australian Maltese communities highlights the dwindling of the Maltese language in second and subsequent generations.
In July 2004 the Maltese Historical Association held an evening entitled a ‘History of the Maltese Language and its Role in Contemporary Australia’ with the aim of providing a space to discuss my initial research into the use of language in ghana performance (see Klein, 2003; Klein, 2005). Polarised opinions emerged, some that valourised the continuation of the Maltese language, and others that deemed the task “futile” (Maltese
Historical Association, 2004: 13). Following this discussion, The Maltese Herald, an Australian publication, reported the talk and finished with the opinion that: “The solution to this problem falls back to the use of English. Quite a dilemma!”(ibid). Building from
the experiences of the Maltese Community in Melbourne, Australia, this article seeks to analyse the “dilemma” that expatriate communities face at the loss of language as a
distinct marker of culture and identity, with particular emphasis on the re-location of identity and class conflicts through language.[2]
Research Interests:
Small music communities like Australian hip-hop advocate a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach to music production and distribution, with the aim of empowering and personalizing music for both artist and audience. With the advent of affordable... more
Small music communities like Australian hip-hop advocate a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach to music production and distribution, with the aim of empowering and personalizing music for both artist and audience. With the advent of affordable home studio set-ups artists have experimented in the creation of recorded music outside of commercial and industrial structures, often creating packaged musical products. Rather than detracting from the music, DIY packaging can form part of an operational philosophy for some alternative musical communities. The DIY creation of covers adds to the cultural value of the music, as the rough, 'hand-made' qualities of the package tie the music and the product as a whole into a narrative of its creation, which acts as a guarantee of authenticity.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Escaping unemployment the majority of first-generation Maltese Australians arrived post Second World War as economic migrants. Government policies of assimilation in place during this period and continuing social inequities have resulted... more
Escaping unemployment the majority of first-generation Maltese Australians arrived post Second World War as economic migrants. Government policies of assimilation in place during this period and continuing social inequities have resulted in a lack of a ‘lived’ connection or sense of belonging for contemporary Maltese Australians. This paper uses Anne Marie Fortier's (2000) concept of re-membering, which draws out the importance of nostalgic remembrance to migrant community spaces and bonds, together with Kelly Oliver's (2001) framework of subjectivity as witnessing. These concepts highlight how the Maltese Australian community re-constitutes itself through actively negotiated cultural performances of Maltese folk music known as ghana.
Research Interests:
Applying a reading of feminine identity to Australian country singer-songwriter Felicity Urquhart's 2001 album 'New Shadow' might initially seem unproductive, as New Shadow does not appear to have any confronting displays of identity or... more
Applying a reading of feminine identity to Australian country singer-songwriter Felicity Urquhart's 2001 album 'New Shadow' might initially seem unproductive, as New Shadow does not appear to have any confronting displays of identity or overtly feminist themes. In many ways it is just another in the uneasy majority of musical products which assume a supposedly 'equal' and 'stable' heterosexual vantage point. However, the album is distinctive in its attempts to produce an Australian genre-bending and audience-crossing retro brand of country swing. In doing so, both Urquhart's vocals and image were honed to display a variety of appealing and safe feminine colours. This chapter seeks to analyse the range of feminine identities present in New Shadow by focusing on various tracks that address romance, heterosexual-desire and nostalgia.
Research Interests:
Research Statement Operatic repertoire staged by the world’s major opera companies is overwhelmingly historical (Dornic 1994, Klein 2014, Littlejohn 1992). Feminist and queer musicologists have critiqued opera’s reproduction of narrative... more
Research Statement
Operatic repertoire staged by the world’s major opera companies is overwhelmingly historical (Dornic 1994, Klein 2014, Littlejohn 1992). Feminist and queer musicologists have critiqued opera’s reproduction of narrative tropes which subject female characters to violence, rape or death (Abel 1997, André 2006, Clément 1989, McClary 1991). Female opera singers negotiate these tropes while themselves possessing little authorial power within the structure of traditional opera companies. There is a need to challenge historical representations of women in opera, to incorporate performance strategies which allow female singers to take on greater authorship within a production.
This opera was written, composed, performed and produced by a female opera singer using consumer-level recording technologies, live processing and improvisation. Beyond the composer, the work was realised for stage with a small production team (director, dancer, videographer). This self-directed methodology is unique in opera, providing a model for other singer-composers. Additionally, the opera reconfigures historical operatic tropes concerned with female violence by presenting a trajectory of healing after violence for its central character. This shows that historical operatic narrative tropes can be challenged by contemporary composers to represent operatic women in non-violent ways.
This work provides a new model for operatic narrative structures, and operatic recording and compositional processes which empower women at the level of representation and authorship.
Value indicators:
• Curated by and staged at the Brisbane Festival, Brisbane.
• Re-performed at the Imagine Festival, Sydney.
• A peer-reviewed journal article about the work’s significance has been published in Musicology Australia (Klein 2014).
• Album version of the work was a Finalist for Work of the Year – Vocal in the APRA/AMC 2014 Art Music Awards
Operatic repertoire staged by the world’s major opera companies is overwhelmingly historical (Dornic 1994, Klein 2014, Littlejohn 1992). Feminist and queer musicologists have critiqued opera’s reproduction of narrative tropes which subject female characters to violence, rape or death (Abel 1997, André 2006, Clément 1989, McClary 1991). Female opera singers negotiate these tropes while themselves possessing little authorial power within the structure of traditional opera companies. There is a need to challenge historical representations of women in opera, to incorporate performance strategies which allow female singers to take on greater authorship within a production.
This opera was written, composed, performed and produced by a female opera singer using consumer-level recording technologies, live processing and improvisation. Beyond the composer, the work was realised for stage with a small production team (director, dancer, videographer). This self-directed methodology is unique in opera, providing a model for other singer-composers. Additionally, the opera reconfigures historical operatic tropes concerned with female violence by presenting a trajectory of healing after violence for its central character. This shows that historical operatic narrative tropes can be challenged by contemporary composers to represent operatic women in non-violent ways.
This work provides a new model for operatic narrative structures, and operatic recording and compositional processes which empower women at the level of representation and authorship.
Value indicators:
• Curated by and staged at the Brisbane Festival, Brisbane.
• Re-performed at the Imagine Festival, Sydney.
• A peer-reviewed journal article about the work’s significance has been published in Musicology Australia (Klein 2014).
• Album version of the work was a Finalist for Work of the Year – Vocal in the APRA/AMC 2014 Art Music Awards
Research Interests:
RESEARCH STATEMENT Translating opera for diverse contemporary audiences is a major challenge to the art form. Scholars such as Žižek and Dolar (2001) consider opera has maintained a stubborn, zombie-like existence in the present through... more
RESEARCH STATEMENT
Translating opera for diverse contemporary audiences is a major challenge to the art form. Scholars such as Žižek and Dolar (2001) consider opera has maintained a stubborn, zombie-like existence in the present through nostalgic, media-centered reconfigurations. Feminist and queer musicologists have also critiqued opera for reproducing narrative tropes which subject female characters to violence, rape or death (Cirton 2004, Abel 1997, Clément 1989). There is a need to contemporise representations of women in opera in ways which challenge and refresh audience experiences of the art form.
Seeds was invited for inclusion in the 2013 Underbelly Arts festival as a re-composition and fully re-worked version of the opera The Pomegranate Cycle (2010). Seeds transforms The Pomegranate Cycle from a 70-minute two-person performance work, into a 20-minute performance and interactive installation incorporating playable sound sculptures and live sonic manipulation. Seeds provides a new experience of opera for diverse festival audiences by blurring the lines between stage and audience space, performance work and interactive experience. Additionally, the Seeds narrative reconfigures historical operatic tropes concerned with female violence by presenting a trajectory of healing after violence for its central character.
It provides a new model for experiencing operatic performance, while also empowering women at the level of representation and authorship.
Value Markers:
• Inclusion at a major Australian performing arts festival, Underbelly Arts, presenting the work to a large audience.
• Inclusion, via peer-review processes, in an international academic conference and performance festival, the International Computer Music Conference 2013 – International Developments in ElectroAcoustics / Tura New Music Festival.
• A peer-reviewed journal article about the work’s themes and significance published in Musicology Australia (Klein 2014).
Translating opera for diverse contemporary audiences is a major challenge to the art form. Scholars such as Žižek and Dolar (2001) consider opera has maintained a stubborn, zombie-like existence in the present through nostalgic, media-centered reconfigurations. Feminist and queer musicologists have also critiqued opera for reproducing narrative tropes which subject female characters to violence, rape or death (Cirton 2004, Abel 1997, Clément 1989). There is a need to contemporise representations of women in opera in ways which challenge and refresh audience experiences of the art form.
Seeds was invited for inclusion in the 2013 Underbelly Arts festival as a re-composition and fully re-worked version of the opera The Pomegranate Cycle (2010). Seeds transforms The Pomegranate Cycle from a 70-minute two-person performance work, into a 20-minute performance and interactive installation incorporating playable sound sculptures and live sonic manipulation. Seeds provides a new experience of opera for diverse festival audiences by blurring the lines between stage and audience space, performance work and interactive experience. Additionally, the Seeds narrative reconfigures historical operatic tropes concerned with female violence by presenting a trajectory of healing after violence for its central character.
It provides a new model for experiencing operatic performance, while also empowering women at the level of representation and authorship.
Value Markers:
• Inclusion at a major Australian performing arts festival, Underbelly Arts, presenting the work to a large audience.
• Inclusion, via peer-review processes, in an international academic conference and performance festival, the International Computer Music Conference 2013 – International Developments in ElectroAcoustics / Tura New Music Festival.
• A peer-reviewed journal article about the work’s themes and significance published in Musicology Australia (Klein 2014).
Research Interests:
RESEARCH STATEMENT Marshall McLuhan (1964) argued that the medium was the message, and therefore the medium of content delivery warranted careful scrutiny. In the 21st century the art of love letter writing is being reconfigured by text... more
RESEARCH STATEMENT
Marshall McLuhan (1964) argued that the medium was the message, and therefore the medium of content delivery warranted careful scrutiny. In the 21st century the art of love letter writing is being reconfigured by text messaging, social media and email. Walter Benjamin (1936) argued that the aura of art works was being lost through mass reproduction. Recent maker movements in letter writing, artists book creation and scrapbooking resist digital creation processes in favour of the idiosyncratic and the handmade as a means of asserting value. Primary questions driving this inquiry are:
• Are there qualities that hand written love letters impart that cannot be equally replication in digital media forms?
• What does the process of letter writing mean to both the writer and the reader?
• Can these qualities be evoked, replicated or enhanced in other media forms?
Sincerely Yours tests the research questions above by anonymously sampling love letters contributed by the public and transforming them into works across difference media forms—visual art installation, performance art, music and a blog. In transforming the letters into this work, audiences are encouraged to consider the contributed letters alongside their evocation in various media to evaluate and experience the emotional and aesthetic possibilities of love letters. Wojak and Klein present their interpretations and respond to the audience during the work through improvised performance and sound creation. Audience members feed back into the work by submitting new letters at the installation venue, or by communicating with the artists by letter, email or the project blog.
This work demonstrates how the emotional, textual and experiential qualities of love letters can travel and are reconfigured by their presentation on media.
Value is indicated by the work’s presentation at multiple Australian and international festivals, positive media coverage, and the receipt of an arts award which enabled the work’s creation.
Marshall McLuhan (1964) argued that the medium was the message, and therefore the medium of content delivery warranted careful scrutiny. In the 21st century the art of love letter writing is being reconfigured by text messaging, social media and email. Walter Benjamin (1936) argued that the aura of art works was being lost through mass reproduction. Recent maker movements in letter writing, artists book creation and scrapbooking resist digital creation processes in favour of the idiosyncratic and the handmade as a means of asserting value. Primary questions driving this inquiry are:
• Are there qualities that hand written love letters impart that cannot be equally replication in digital media forms?
• What does the process of letter writing mean to both the writer and the reader?
• Can these qualities be evoked, replicated or enhanced in other media forms?
Sincerely Yours tests the research questions above by anonymously sampling love letters contributed by the public and transforming them into works across difference media forms—visual art installation, performance art, music and a blog. In transforming the letters into this work, audiences are encouraged to consider the contributed letters alongside their evocation in various media to evaluate and experience the emotional and aesthetic possibilities of love letters. Wojak and Klein present their interpretations and respond to the audience during the work through improvised performance and sound creation. Audience members feed back into the work by submitting new letters at the installation venue, or by communicating with the artists by letter, email or the project blog.
This work demonstrates how the emotional, textual and experiential qualities of love letters can travel and are reconfigured by their presentation on media.
Value is indicated by the work’s presentation at multiple Australian and international festivals, positive media coverage, and the receipt of an arts award which enabled the work’s creation.
Research Interests:
RESEARCH STATEMENT Research Background During the twentieth and early twenty-first century operatic and classical music institutions have resisted incorporating works of living composers into their repertory. How recording technologies... more
RESEARCH STATEMENT
Research Background
During the twentieth and early twenty-first century operatic and classical music institutions have resisted incorporating works of living composers into their repertory. How recording technologies can be used to develop and driving change is therefore a fruitful area of enquiry because they remain under-explored. Further these technologies have already challenged the regulation of the classical tradition by changing people’s modes of accessing, creating and interacting with music via the circulation of repertory based sound recordings. Exploring the aesthetic qualities of recording processes more fully, in more creative ways expands opera’s aesthetic reach in dialogue with contemporary and popular music genres.
Research Contribution
The Pomegranate EP tests, through the creation of a sound recording, ideas presented in Klein’s PhD Thesis 'The Pomegranate Cycle: Reconfiguring opera through performance, technology & composition' (2012).
Building on the work of artists including Phillips and van Veen, Robert Ashley and Diamanda Galas, The Pomegranate EP demonstrates the ways in which the operatic tradition can be hybridised with contemporary musical forms such as ambient electronica, glitch, spoken word and concrete sounds as a way of bringing opera into dialogue with contemporary music cultures. Using other sound cultures within the context of opera enables women’s voices and stories to be presented in new ways, while also providing a point of friction with opera’s traditional storytelling devices.
Research Significance:
This work demonstrates how opera can be hybridised with other contemporary music styles while still foregrounding the primacy of operatic vocal techniques.
Value indicators:
• Release by Australian record label, Feral Media
• Creative work a direct outcome of PhD research.
• Broadcast on National and International radio.
• Inclusion of tracks on secondary record releases and inclusion in a documentary soundtrack.
Research Background
During the twentieth and early twenty-first century operatic and classical music institutions have resisted incorporating works of living composers into their repertory. How recording technologies can be used to develop and driving change is therefore a fruitful area of enquiry because they remain under-explored. Further these technologies have already challenged the regulation of the classical tradition by changing people’s modes of accessing, creating and interacting with music via the circulation of repertory based sound recordings. Exploring the aesthetic qualities of recording processes more fully, in more creative ways expands opera’s aesthetic reach in dialogue with contemporary and popular music genres.
Research Contribution
The Pomegranate EP tests, through the creation of a sound recording, ideas presented in Klein’s PhD Thesis 'The Pomegranate Cycle: Reconfiguring opera through performance, technology & composition' (2012).
Building on the work of artists including Phillips and van Veen, Robert Ashley and Diamanda Galas, The Pomegranate EP demonstrates the ways in which the operatic tradition can be hybridised with contemporary musical forms such as ambient electronica, glitch, spoken word and concrete sounds as a way of bringing opera into dialogue with contemporary music cultures. Using other sound cultures within the context of opera enables women’s voices and stories to be presented in new ways, while also providing a point of friction with opera’s traditional storytelling devices.
Research Significance:
This work demonstrates how opera can be hybridised with other contemporary music styles while still foregrounding the primacy of operatic vocal techniques.
Value indicators:
• Release by Australian record label, Feral Media
• Creative work a direct outcome of PhD research.
• Broadcast on National and International radio.
• Inclusion of tracks on secondary record releases and inclusion in a documentary soundtrack.