Contemporary Musical Virtuosities
A new collection of essays edited by Louise Devenish and Cat Hope.
“this book asks the questions and opens the doors to imagining what new possibilities might exist for music makers and our communities in the future”
Features chapters by Jonathan Impett, Salomé Voegelin, Clint Bracknell, Molly Joyce, Sandeep Bhagwati, Maggie Nicols, Sam McAuliffe, Margaret Schedel, Suzanne Thorpe, Cathy van Eck, Echo Ho, Alberto de Campo, Hannes Hölzl, Jennifer Torrence, Ros Bandt, Karina Utomo, Iran Sanadzadeh, David Moran, Louise Devenish and Cat Hope.
I am thrilled to announce the publication of this edited collection that I have been working on with my colleague Louise Devenish. The book explores contemporary notions of musical virtuosity, redeveloping historic concepts and arguing that our present understanding of virtuosity in Western Art Music has shifted from what seemed, for a time, to be a relatively clear and stable definition. Debates around the definition and/or value of virtuosity have always elicited strong and varied ideas, and frictions have emerged between traditional definitions of virtuosity and contemporary practices that emphasise collaboration and blur roles between performers, composers, and improvisers. This book aims to embrace the evolving processes, practitioners, and presentation models within twenty-first century art music. It features some of my collaborators - including Louise herself (Decibel/Speechless/Monash), and Karina Utoma (Speechless).
It explores recent insights into the experience and role of virtuosity in different contexts, via contributions from an intergenerational group of artists, academics, and artist-academics. Current themes in contemporary western art music and intersecting musical and performing arts genres such as dance, sound art, improvisation, jazz, trans-traditional collaborations, and Australian Indigenous music offer models for supporting and recognising a plurality of musical virtuosities typically excluded from traditional definitions and examines implications for musical practice today. Chapters take the form of academic essays, artist reflections, interviews, personal letters, and a THE NEW VIRTUOSITY manifesto is included and discussed. First writings on practices that have been present in the industry for some time are a valuable feature of this book, and proposes a vision for the future that prioritises inclusive and overlapping practices and processes in music.
Routledge, Hardcover & Kindle. Find the book on the Routledge Site here