Date: Wednesday 26 April 2017
Time: 6‒8.30pm
Venue: Forum Theatre, Arts West Building, The University of Melbourne, Parkville
Love, a complex emotion to say the least, has inspired artists and creative practitioners for centuries, generating countless artworks, objects, poems, books, musical compositions and films. Over three weeks this masterclass will explore the materiality, visions and sounds of love in response to the exhibition 'Love: Art of Emotion 1400-1800' held at the National Gallery of Victoria (31 March‒18 June 2017); a collaborative project produced with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at The University of Melbourne.
Each week will explore a theme within the exhibition. Led by Love: Art of Emotion curator and lead researcher, Dr Angela Hesson, the masterclass series will be a blend of lectures, discussions and performances by some of the University’s most celebrated scholars and musicians. There will also be exclusive exhibition viewing for the first two sessions.
Sounds of Love: Music
Speaker: Professor Jane Davidson
There are myriad ways that music offers structures for people to regulate their emotional lives: it can help them to release tension, attach strong memories to events and people and offer a powerful source of nostalgia. More than this, music can provide contexts for social companionship and support. But, do we always experience the same emotion each time we hear a familiar work? Is there a form of unconditional musical love?
Professor Jane Davidson works in the fields of psychology of music, arts and health, history of emotions and music performance. She investigates embodied cognition, musical development, music and care, and vocal performance. She began a solo singing career in childhood, giving performances across the UK and Europe. She has worked in opera, music theatre and dance, in venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Barbican, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. She has directed and devised performances for over thirty years. She is Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Associate Dean Engagement and Professor of Creative and Performing Arts (Music) at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
Speaker: David Haberfeld
Love can be many things, such as that towards my family; son, wife and pug. But something odd happens when I describe my love for music technology–in particular my love for the Roland TB-303 Baseline synthesizer!
David Haberfeld is an accomplished and awarded music industry professional with over twenty years of diverse experience as an electronic dance music artist, producer, composer, performer, DJ, promoter, academic and educator. His work as an energetic and colourful live electronic act, Honeysmack, has earned him rare respect on the Australian live rock and dance music circuits. He is a multidisciplinary artist with a high understanding, expertise and experiences across media arts. He is a lecturer in Interactive Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
Speaker: Dr Erin Helyard
Love and HIP. Historically Informed Performance tries to understand how music and culture interacted in the past. Experiments lead us down unknown paths that often stimulate new and revitalised expression; new timbres, effects, and textures that we fall in love with. But why? And how?
Dr Erin Helyard is a virtuosic and eloquent harpsichordist as well as an inspired and versatile conductor, praised for his work at the forefront of a new generation of young musicians inspired by the latest musicological and historical enquiry. He is highly active in reviving seventeenth- and eighteenth-century operas in performance and score as artistic director of the acclaimed Pinchgut Opera and conducted the two productions in 2015 and 2016 that received Best Opera at the Helpmann Awards. He is a senior lecturer in Musicology and Historical Performance at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
Speaker: Dr Anthony Lyons
Love and the compositional process: How a love of using found sounds and sampled materials informs my creative practice. Sounds can become malleable materials fused with the ideas, emotions, and memories of both their source and their manipulator!
Dr Anthony Lyons is a respected composer, producer and musician whose diverse output includes work for orchestra, chamber ensemble, bands, electronic dance music, installation and multimedia projects. Electronic processes and sampled materials feature in many of his compositions and he is increasingly drawn to exploring the granular world of sound and connections to memory, sonority and place. He is a lecturer in Interactive Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.