The valorization of sonority in contemporary Brazilian music: research internship abroad

Abstract

This project proposes to undertake a research internship in Germany as part of the doctoral research which I am currently developing at the University of São Paulo, under the tutelage of Dr. Marcos Branda Lacerda, with support from FAPESP. The main research project (running since July, 2012) relates two fields in which I have anchored my studies: the musicology field (theoretical/scientific) and the compositional field (practical/artistic). In what is called musicology, besides the constructed theoretical contribution based on the critical reading of the fundamental bibliography, in my doctorate I focus on musical analysis of works by Brazilian composers in order to verify which way music produced in Brazil reacted (and have reacted) to propositions related to the theme of sonority since the beginning of the twentieth century. In what is referred to as composition, I develop an experimental work where I seek to musically dialogue with the subjects (concepts, authors, composers, and works) studied in the theoretical field. Not aspiring for univocal unfoldings - as if the compositional work served as a specimen developed in the laboratory based on theoretical research - the relationship between theory and practice is a two-way street and is worth the permanent contaminations between two fields that retroactively feed off of one another. The research internship will last 12 months and be take place at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, in Germany. Throughout the internship, I intend to simultaneously develop both the musicology and compositional parts of my research, dedicating myself to the bibliographic research, development of musical analyses, writing of the thesis and one scientific article, and composing of two new pieces. Relying on the thorough advising from musicologist Marcos Branda Lacerda in Brazil, I will work in Germany under the supervision of composer Marco Stroppa. The undertaking of a research internship in Germany over 12 months certainly will contribute to furthering the questions addressed in my doctorate and to the sedimentation of concepts studied in the theoretical and artistic fields, concepts which are still in the process of construction nowadays. (AU)