13.30  Presentation Raffaele Longo
14.30  Presentation Ian Pace 

Raffaele Longo
Works as Expert Project Manager for the Unit Cooperation & Research at Link Campus University in Rome, he is also Head of International Relations Unit of INNEL – Neuroleadership National Institute (www.innel.it) and Expert Advisor for international project at Conservatoire “Santa Cecilia” in Rome. He is leading several projects (Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education, Strategic Partnership, RISE H2020, etc.) in Europe Mediterranean (Libya, Palestine – Gaza Strip), Middle East (Iran), Latin America (Ecuador, Chile), Far East (Vietnam). He has been also Head of International Affairs at the Conservatory of Music of Cosenza (IT) and Head of Unit ‘Cooperation, Research & Development, Networks and International Partnerships’ at University of Calabria (Italy). Over last years has been lecturer, speaker and chairman in important meetings of Higher Education in Europe (UE, AEC, EAIE, IHPEI, ERACON, FS-BIOTECH, DAAD, EACEA). He Expert Evaluator and Rapporteur for the European Commission – REA, HORIZON 2020 programme, Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions. Moreover, he was member of the IRC Development Working Group International Relations Coordinators and the Working Group “Education for Entrepreneurship”, European Association of Conservatories (AEC), Brussels. He was Project Leader of 5 international networks EU funded (Placement Consortium, Improvisation, Digital Arts, Jazz, Contemporary Opera) with 20 projects involving 25 Higher Education Institutions of 21 EU Countries and more the 50 companies and enterprises. He has been an expert consultant for Higher Education VEGA - Venice Scientific and Technological PARK. His background encompasses composition, conduction, piano and philosophy. Professor of Music Theory in Higher Education programs (Cosenza, Italy) and Visiting Professor in the following European Universities: Berlin, Krakow, Vilnius, Tromso, Brussels, Tallinn, Izmir, Tirana. He specializes in music analysis (Shenker) and musical semiotics. Recent publications: musical dramaturgy and deconstruction; Mozart’s theatre; semiotics of the contemporary music; entrepreneurship, business and performing arts. Current researches: Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence applied to music theory and composition as well as logical approach to the harmony of Elliott Carter; informal and non-formal learning; leadership; international cooperation. His publications encompass leadership, internationalisation, international cooperation in conflict zones, dramaturgy, humans resources, transnational mobility actions

ABSTRACT

The research project aims to underpin an innovative approach by linking composition to music theory from a path-breaking methodological angle. The originality of this research approach is grounded, indeed, on the definition of a new paradigm in music composition: the researcher will investigate if and how Elliott Carter’s harmony – as it was systematized in his harmony handbook - can be the drive to explore novel composition paths throughout the values of a ‘new humanistic’ prospect while leading it towards a deconstructionist approach. In this regard, Carter’s harmonic praxis plays the original role of a postmodern, grammatological ‘Renaissance atelier’, while it tries to set out creative interconnections which lead both music composition and its theoretical approach at the frontiers of poststructuralism. Powered by the new creative paradigm of cross-domain methodology, the highly multidisciplinary approach to inquire into Carter’s harmony entails pivotal aesthetical and ethical implications as well as a new perspective – grounded on deconstructionism - applied to music composition trajectories. On the one hand, the use of a ‘traditional’ toolkit is now revaluated, notably Carter’s harmonic grammatology as it is systematised in his treatise and solid compositional techniques. On the other hand, this work contributes to the contemporary (re)definition of a novel comprehensive theory of aesthetic perception, oriented to increase research creativity, efficacy and performative dimension in music theory. Concerning the interaction between the composers’ creative act and pre-existent rules and schemas, the categorised music sets must be elaborated (treated) only on the basis of the information provided by the grammatology level of Carter’s logical formalization. Consequently, a performative projection is produced as symbolically imagined by the ‘author’ and as elicited from the composer’s interpretation. The performers are re-thinking and re-elaborating them (hermeneutic process) so as the ‘written’ score - as it is given - may be transferred to human models (players). The applied methodology sheds then light on the real value (aesthetic asset) of the whole creativity sphere: the poietic process rather than the final artistic artefact. Finally, the focus on what the concrete use of the research would mean for a nowadays composer will be a best-practice implementation of the research framework anchored to the deconstruction approach applied to the new music theory paradigm.  The framework represents the research methodology in synthesised form and together with the analysis outcomes, all the resulting performances (live and recordings) and publications (score, articles and essays), they form the corpus of material to be disseminated for future research, also focusing on what the concrete use of the research would mean for a nowadays composer.

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​Ian Pace, ‘Autoethnography as Critically Engaged Practice: Methodological Concerns and Case Studies relating to Notation, Genre, and Aesthetic’
 
In this paper, I will outline my own definitions and understandings of autoethnography for musicians, involving above all an eschewal of method, in the sense of any prescribed strategy (though without precluding the flexible adoption of techniques which have an existing provenance), as a defining factor, in favour of this being a critical attitude taken by artistic researchers towards their own practice and those of others. I present this in the context of a somewhat sceptical attitude towards some varieties of ethnography in general, mentioning briefly some of its limitations and some of the more exalted claims made by its proponents. Included within this is a brief consideration of the conflicting claims placed upon artistic researchers who also compete within cultural economies external to academia.
 
In the second half of the paper, I relate these perspectives to case studies from my own work, with demonstrations at the piano, including of music of Debussy, Ives, Feldman and Finnissy. I elaborate on a model of musical notation (first set out in a 2009 article published in the Orpheus Institute collection Unfolding Time) and the role of the score (in distinction to the work-concept) as negation of habit and stimulus for interpretation as creative practice. I also consider briefly the role of musical genre for performers of contemporary music, as an unavoidable component of performing and listening, and discuss how one might navigate both generic context and the mediating actions of individual composers between such a context and the score encountered by the performer, drawing upon a forthcoming article on Finnissy. Finally, I draw these concerns together to draw some conclusions about the often quite fundamentally aesthetic nature of artistic research questions.