Frederic Kiernan completed a PhD in 2019 at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (The University of Melbourne), with a thesis titled ‘The Figure of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) in the History of Emotions.’ His thesis was awarded the Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis for 2020. He is currently the Research Coordinator of the Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative at that university.
Frederic’s MMus thesis presented a critical edition of Zelenka’s six settings of Ave regina coelorum (ZWV 128), which was published as a single volume by A-R Editions (Wisconsin) in 2018. Other research projects have focussed on methodological links between music psychology and history of emotions literature, and the transmission of musical styles and practices from Vienna to Dresden in the eighteenth century.
In February 2022, Frederic will commence a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship at The University of Melbourne to work on the project, ‘Musical value in a loneliness epidemic: Addressing a public health challenge using musical aesthetics’.
Contact
kiernanf@unimelb.edu.au
Research
Historical and Contemporary Emotional Engagement with the Music of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745)
Supervisors
Jane W. Davidson
Janice B. Stockigt
David R. M. Irving
Amanda E. Krause
Edited Collections
Kiernan, F., J. W. Davidson and L. Oades, eds. ‘Creativity and Wellbeing’, special issue, International Journal of Wellbeing 10.5 (2020).
Murphy, K., F. Kiernan and A. Frampton, eds. 'Zelenka, Bach and the Eighteenth-Century German Baroque: Essays in Honour of Janice B. Stockigt', special issue of Musicology Australia 41.2 (2019). Taylor & Francis.
Kiernan, F., ed. Jan Dismas Zelenka: Six Settings of 'Ave Regina Coelorum' (ZMW 128). Wisconsin: AR-Editions, 2018.
Journal articles and contributions
Kiernan, F., A. E. Krause and J. W. Davidson. ‘The impact of biographical information about a composer on emotional responses to their music’. Musicae Scientiae. First published online 4 March 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864920988883.
Kiernan, F. ‘Emotion as creative practice: Linking creativity and wellbeing through the history and sociology of emotion’. International Journal of Wellbeing 10.5 (2020): 43–63. https://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/1517.
Kiernan, F., J. W. Davidson, and L. Oades. ‘Researching creativity and wellbeing: Interdisciplinary perspectives’. International Journal of Wellbeing 10.5 (2020): 1–5. https://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/article/view/1523
Kiernan, F. 'Zdeněk Gintl’s O starých českých muzikantech (1946) and the Reconstruction of Jan Dismas Zelenka's Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Prague'. Musicology Australia 41.2 (2019): 226–35. doi: 10.1080/08145857.2019.1696165
Murphy, K., F. Kiernan and A. Frampton. 'Editorial Note'. Musicology Australia 41.2 (2019): 75. doi: 10.1080/08145857.2019.1738626
Kiernan, F. 'Wolfgang Horn and Zelenka'. Clavibus unitis 8.1 (2019): 101–106. Retrieved from http://www.acecs.cz/media/cu_2019_08_01_kiernan.pdf
Kiernan, F. 'Zelenka Reception since the Eighteenth Century: The Role of Emotions'. Context: Journal of Music Research, 42 (2017), 99–103. Retrieved from https://contextjournal.music.unimelb.edu.au/
Davidson, J. W., F. Kiernan and S. Garrido. ‘Introducing a Psycho-Historical Approach to the Study of Emotions in Music: The Case of Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda’. Emotions: History, Culture, Society 1 (2017): 29–60
Kiernan, F. 'Zelenka Reception in the Nineteenth Century: Some New Sources’. Clavibus unitis 4 (2015): 91–96. Retrieved from http://www.acecs.cz/media/cu_2015_04.pdf
Kiernan, F.. 'Zelenka’s Ave regina coelorum settings (ZWV 128) of 1737: A Case Study in the Transmission of Viennese Liturgico-musical Practices to Dresden.' Context: A Journal of Music Research 37 (2012): 55–76.
Reference works
Stockigt, J., A. Frampton, and F. Kiernan. Zelenka, Jan (Lukas Ignatius) Dismas (2 ed.). Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online 2018 doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.30907
Conference reports
Kiernan, F. 'Zelenka Conference Prague, 18 October 2019'. Eighteenth Century Music 17.2 (2020): 295–97. doi:10.1017/S1478570620000056.
Kiernan, F. and S. Hogan. 'Report on the Melbourne Bach Forum held by the Australian Bach Society, July 2014'. Bach Notes: The Journal of the London Bach Society, Autumn 2014, 5.
Conference papers presented
Kiernan, Frederic. “Wolfgang Horn and Zelenka”. Paper presented at the International Zelenka Conference Prague, Musicological Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 18 October 2019.
Kiernan, Frederic. “The impact of biographical information about a composer on emotional responses to their music.” Paper presented at the International Symposium on Performance Science (ISPS) in collaboration with the Australian Music and Psychology Society (AMPS), Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Southbank, 16–20 July 2019.
Kiernan, Frederic. “Zelenka’s Identity in the Nineteenth Century: Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, and Other Literature.” Paper presented at the Zelenka Conference Prague, kostel sv. Vavřince, Malá Strana, Hellichova 18, Praha 1, 19 October 2018.
Kiernan, Frederic. “Zelenka’s Identity in the Nineteenth Century: Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, and Other Literature.” Paper presented at The University of Melbourne and Musicological Society of Australia (Victorian Chapter) Symposium in Honour of Janice B. Stockigt, Old Warden’s Lodge, Trinity College, Parkville, 4 August 2018.
Kiernan, Frederic. ‘The Emotional Life of Musical Objects: Zelenka and the Nineteenth-century Collectors’. Paper presented at the Musicological Society of Australia conference, The University of Auckland, 8–10 December 2017.
Kiernan, Frederic. “Is the BRECVEMA Model Useful for Historians?" Paper presented at the Australian Music Psychology Society Biennial Meeting and 5th International Conference on Music and Emotion, The University of Queensland. 7–8 December 2017.
Kiernan, Frederic. “Zelenka in Czech Literature”. Paper presented at the conference Zelenka and the Czech Baroque: 18th-century Music Culture in Bohemia. National Pedagogical Museum and Library of Jan Amos Komenský, Prague. 6 October 2017.
Davidson, Jane W., Joseph Browning and Frederic Kiernan. “From Historical to Contemporary Emotions in Voyage to the Moon.” Paper presented at Opera: The Art of Emotions, the inaugural conference of the Opera Special Interest Group of the Musicological Society of Australia. The University of Melbourne, 30 September–1 October, 2016.
Kiernan, F. 'Zelenka Reception in the Nineteenth Century: Some New Sources’. Paper presented at the conference Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Life and Music Reconsidered, Prague, 15 October 2015.
Kiernan, Frederic. ‘ “Gruesomely Splendid”: Zelenka’s Requiem setting (ZWV 46) of 1733 and the Politics of Catholic Grief and Mourning in Lutheran Saxony’. Paper presented at the collaboratory Practising Emotions: Place and the Public Sphere, The University of Melbourne, 6–8 August 2015.
Kiernan, Frederic. ‘Towards a Reception History of Zelenka’s Sacred Music’. Paper presented at a Colloquium on Baroque Music, Martin Luther University, Halle Wittenberg, Germany, 29 June 2015.
Kiernan, Frederic. ‘Sweet Music’: Marian Antiphons and the Promulgation of Habsburg Catholic Piety in Lutheran Saxony, 1708–1765.' Paper presented at the Conference of the Musicological Society of Australia, Australian National University, Canberra, 3–5 December, 2012.
Kiernan, Frederic. ‘Sweet Music’: Marian Antiphons and the Promulgation of Habsburg Catholic Piety in Lutheran Saxony, 1708–1765.’ Paper presented at the Conference of the Victorian Chapter of the Musicological Society of Australia, The Hub Docklands, Melbourne, 23–24 November 2012.
Awards, Scholarships and Bursaries
The University of Melbourne Chancellor's Prize (Humanities, Creative Arts and Social Sciences) (2020)
ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions PhD Travel Fellowship (2017)
Endeavour Research Fellowship, Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg (2015)
Australian Postgraduate Award (2014)
John Hodgson Scholarship, The University of Melbourne (2010)
Ormond Exhibition, The University of Melbourne (2010)
Blog
The Fredly Digest (A blog of my Endeavour Research Fellowship, 2015)