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Our Research Forums provide in-depth insight into some of the cutting-edge research that is taking place at the RNCM. Hear presentations from academics, performers, and composers as they share the latest developments in their fields, discuss innovative techniques, and explore new perspectives on music performance, composition, and scholarship.

These forums offer a unique opportunity to engage with groundbreaking work, ask questions, and gain a deeper understanding of the evolving landscape of music research at the RNCM. Talks usually last about an hour, including a Q&A session. Join us in person or watch this session livestreamed.

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Laurence Osborn reflects on the image of the keyboard in his works involving piano, harpsichord, and electronic sampler. According to Laurence, ‘The image of the keyboard stands for various tensions and issues in music practice that interest me as a composer, and that I have tried to explore in the pieces surveyed here. Two pieces for harpsichord and ensemble, Automaton (2019) and Coin Op Automata (2021), depict the harpsichord as a site of elision between human and mechanism. Absorber (2019) is written for both piano and sampler played simultaneously and repurposes relics of late-twentieth-century ‘keyboardism’. TOMB!(2022) draws on the uncanny image of Nancarrow’s piano in its exploration of deadness andre-animation. My forthcoming piano concerto, Schiller’s Piano (2024), is about the forced construction of a hollow replica of Schiller’s piano at Buchenwald concentration camp in1943. Here, the soloist alternates between piano and sampler, aurally ‘building’ the piano using recordings taken from piano construction‘.

Tickets:
Free admission, no ticket required

This event will end at approximately 5.15pm.