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The present conference aims to study the creative trajectory of the Brazilian contemporary opera confection and also how the creation networks of opera work, within a communicational and semiotical approach.
It also aims to explore the indissociability of the many artistic languages other than the music that coexist in opera. We are considering here the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art" or "universal artwork") used by German philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff and German composer Richard Wagner.
Starting there, this research seeks an analytical proposal in the complexity of the archives. This proposal is mostly based on the process criticism theory developed by Brazilian author Cecilia Almeida Salles.
Salles regards what we call in Portuguese "tramas do pensamento", or "the thought's weft" (trama in Portuguese means both woof/weft or plot). Therefore, the creative environment is thought as an interconnected and interactive network. Salles is interested, also, in the consequences of this network: how does it generate new possibilities? The researcher is, thus, contrary to an idea of the creativity being something isolated and at rest.
This research presents an interdisciplinary perspective of the multidimensionality in the music analysis field. It can be, therefore, a contribution to the Tracking the Creative Process In Music congress, as it brings some Brazilian points of view about the subject.
This investigation displays the necessity of analyzing the composers' works from the perspective of opera being a sign system (or sign network) in process, and not merely a product. It relies on the semiotics theory of Charles Sanders Peirce dialoguing with theoreticians of the complexity path, such as Edgar Morin; musicologists who study genetic criticism in music, such as Nicolas Donin; theorizers of the network concept, such as André Parente and Brazilian opera theorizers, such as Sérgio Casoy and Lauro Machado Coelho. Recent publication made by specialized critics and journalists concerning the music of the 21st century will also be considered, such as Alex Ross and João Luiz Sampaio.
The concept of this study began with an opportunity to observing closely the process of composing and rehearsing the opera O Menino e a Liberdade (2013), from Brazilian composer (resident in Sao Paulo) Ronaldo Miranda. The author also made some documents available for the researcher, which will be crucial for a creative process analysis.
O Menino e a Liberdade's music was based on Brazilian writer Paulo Bomfim's chronicle of the same name, and libretto by writer, professor and researcher Joge Coli. The opera was included in the 2013 Theatro São Pedro season and was conducted by maestro Roberto Duarte (premiere: november 2013).
This opera is a secluded sample of a contemporary Brazilian opera that was actually staged. Presentations with these characteristics are very rare in Brazil, since the opera theaters in the county prefer to privilege overpast compositions - hoping they will attract audiences more easily than newer compositions.
During the period I was watching O Menino e a Liberdade's rehearsals, I was able to collect important data that will eventually help to understand this piece, this genre and will also be helpful in mapping expression layers of the creative process, such as: 1) the production context; 2) procedures of creation; 3) multiple interactions; 4) the part each subject takes in a collective process; 5) what part does the manager institution of an opera theater plays.
The latter topic is essential to understand how the opera seasons are set in Brazil and why is it so difficult to perform new compositions here. The lack of a cultural public policy associated with deficient investments of the private sector in classical music, and also the absence of articulation between new composers make it difficult to premiere contemporary work in Brazil.
In addition to the five items cited previously, this research will also discuss specific mode of action within Ronaldo Miranda's project, specific matters of opera and general creation issues.
This analysis does not consider only musical elements, but seeks to incorporate all the aspects cited. It may lead to a broader discussion about opera, that goes beyond a merely musicological analysis.
It is not my objective, however, to exhaust every analytical and interpretative possibility when reading a creative process. It is, otherwise, a possible glance from a general theory that carefully ponders about communication objects.
The results of this research may indicate new forms of approaching the genre opera (and, also, the classical music) from a semiotic askance within the theory of creative process in networks.
From 2004 to 2015 two research centres funded by the (UK) Arts and Humanities Research Council – which represented successive stages of the same project – provided a focus for research in musical performance. Whereas the first (the AHRC Res
October 10, 2015 55 min
The French literary criticism movement, critique génétique, is an attractive interdisciplinary model for the study of music sketches because of its staggering amount of varied scholarship published during its forty-year history, its conce
October 10, 2015 32 min
This paper will present the core role of improvisation groups in the late Sixties / beginning of the Seventies in the process of building the new status of music material in the post-serial context. Analysing some “Gruppo di Improvvisazione
October 10, 2015 33 min
In previous conference presentations and writings I have discussed Henry Brant’s process of “prose-report composition,” which became his primary working method in 1945. The process, which is heavily documented in his sketch manuscripts at t
October 10, 2015 27 min
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October 10, 2015 29 min
In recent years, the increased availability of recorded music in the instrumental teaching studio as part of performers’ routine for familiarising themselves with musical works they will then go on to perform, has meant that performers are
October 10, 2015 30 min
The paper is an attempt for reconstruction of coding (creative) and decoding (reading) process, both dependent on temporary collective imaginative patterns, which funded the historic-ontological status of two significant works of the Czech
October 10, 2015 26 min
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October 10, 2015 28 min
This paper theorizes and investigates the role of new music festivals, currently among the leading institutional impulses for the creation of contemporary art music. During the last few decades those festivals have gained increasing promine
October 10, 2015 30 min
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October 10, 2015 30 min
In his book The Economics of Creativity: Art and Achievement under Uncertainty (2014), the distinguished sociologist Pierre-Michel Menger offers an analysis of artistic creativity that seeks a middle path between two equally unsatisfactory
October 10, 2015 01 h 13 min
In my presentation I will elucidate the interplay of several forms of knowledge in composing process in art music. As a general term, “knowledge” includes forms of explicit, propositional knowledge as well as several forms of implicit, embo
October 10, 2015 23 min
Faced to a more and more digitalized world the interest in artists manuscripts is still growing. Sometimes it is the mystic rising of an idea and its often unexpected development, sometimes it is a surprising simple reason that can be seen
October 10, 2015 26 min
New things are made with old things. In this sense, all creation is basically a combinatorial process – though not just that. It also implies novelty; but novelty comes into play in a dynamic space between random indeterminacy and routine r
October 10, 2015 36 min
The concept of "mistake" is antithetical to jazz's spirit of uninhibited creativity. But jazz, like any musical style, conforms to a system of rules and conventions; indeed, this is what defines the style—what makes it sound like jazz and n
October 10, 2015 26 min
In jazz research and performance practice, emphasis has long been awarded to musicians who exhibit virtuosity or mastery of solo improvisation. Whether Louis Armstrong’s assertive solo cadenza on West End Blues or John Coltrane’s blazing ac
October 10, 2015 24 min
Since sociology has been historically concerned with the question of how social order is possible, its main focus has been on exploring (the imposition of) conventions, rules, norms, every day routines, etc. As a result, the study of creati
October 10, 2015 29 min
This paper presents the results of a genetic study of Antagonisme, a chamber work composed by Xavier Darasse on a text by the philosopher Alain Badiou for the 1965 concours de composition at the Conservatoire de Paris. Darasse and Badiou be
October 10, 2015 26 min
Vers le milieu des années 1980 à l’IRCAM, le compositeur français Marc-André Dalbavie a pris conscience de l’importance de l’espace dans l’existence du son, notamment à travers son contact avec l’acousticien Jean-Marie Adrien. À parti
October 10, 2015 32 min
From 2004 to 2015 two research centres funded by the (UK) Arts and Humanities Research Council – which represented successive stages of the same project – provided a focus for research in musical performance. Whereas the first (the AHRC Res
October 10, 2015 55 min
From their compositional and philosophical perspectives, the works of Elliott Carter and Luigi Nono share very little in common. Carter, a true American modernist, strongly opposed the method of twelve-tone music, which was becoming prevale
October 10, 2015 27 min
The question of whether Henri Dutilleux was a pro- or anti-serialist can be difficult to answer. However, in the 1960s, the composer evidently participated in the serial movement when he composed his two seminal works called Métaboles and
October 10, 2015 26 min
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