Assi Karttunen

Research, articles

Presented a paper in Song, Stage and Screen VIII London 2013

Song, Stage and Screen VIII:

‘What We Do When We Do What We Do: Process and Performance in Musical Theatre’

Central School of Speech and Drama

University of London

2-4 July 2013

Assi Karttunen DMus, Sibelius Academy, Finland

Experiences of coaching in the Rameau´s Les Indes Galantes -workshop

In my artistic research project I study rhetorical actio (voice, gesture, movement and mien) in the living body of the present-day performer. The project started in August 2011 as a collaboration of two musician-researchers; DMus Päivi Järviö, mezzo soprano and DMus Assi Karttunen, harpsichordist. The project includes concerts, workshops, rehearsals, video recordings, experiments and demonstrations as well as articles describing the working processes. Thus the approach could be called embodied study of historical performing practices.

The study of movement related to music is one of the key areas of modern music research. Music perceived as sound and movement brings forth the musician ́s bodily way of reading the score. In my paper I am focusing on verbalizing my experiences of coaching in the Rameau´s Les Indes Galantes -workshop at the Sibelius Academy the 10th to 14th December 2012 as a part of our research project. Which rhetorical tools seemed to help the singer and the basso continuo player in their tasks? What kind of rehearsals and learning strategies were the most useful in this process? How the conceiving of the actio embedded in the composed libretto helped the singer and the basso continuo player to embody the music in a more communicating way? As one of the project´s results I will discuss the historically informed musician´s relationship to the music performed and thus join the ongoing discussions on the embodiment of so called early music.

Keywords: HIP, gesture, rhetoric, embodiment.
  1. Presented a paper in LONDON SONGART FESTIVAL 2012
  2. Presented a paper 16th Nordic Musicological Congress Stockholm, Sweden
  3. Gave a paper and a demo at CARPA conference 2011, HKI
  4. A lecture concert in Nagoya, Aitchi University 2015
  5. A workshop at the Performance Philosophy Conference, Surrey 2013
  6. Gave a lecture concert at From Known to Unknown festival, Gent
  7. Presented a poster at The Performing Knowledge Conference, Cambridge
  8. Presented a recital lecture at the DiP conference in Dublin 2016
  9. Arts without Borders-conference 2016 Music Centre, abstract
  10. Elysion Fields-working group 2006–2016
  11. Auli Särkiö's article 2015 in Rondo Music Magazine
  12. Article in British Harpsichord Society's Publication 2015
  13. A peer-reviewed research article Rhetorical Obscurité – musician’s historically informed working process
  14. A peer-reviewed research Article in Trio 2016 The music-related gestures of la danse grotesque in Rameau’s Les Sauvages
  15. Can one wade twice into the same Seine? A peer-reviewed research publication 2015
  16. Assi Karttunen: Humanismin perintö ranskalaisessa kantaatissa vuosina 1700-1730

All Essays