Luk Vaes. Extended Piano Techniques in Artistic Research

Extended Piano Techniques in Artistic Research
Extended techniques is a topic par excellence for artistic research, as the perspective of the performer is crucial to all characteristics of it: even the theoretical and historical aspects are particularly determined from the performer’s perspective. This lecture will detail the insights gained from that perspective, how they are different from the musicological focus and even in distinction to the traditional performance views, as well as showing the avenues opened up because of the approach. One special consequence is the peyotl project, entailing the composition of new music for children, in the special setting of a non-composer artistic reseacher and a non-researcher composer. 

Luk Vaes studied piano with a.o. Claude Coppens (Belgium), Aloys Kontarsky (Germany) and Yvar Mikhashoff (US), won first prizes in several international competitions and concertized with musicians such as Uri Caine and Thomas Quasthoff at the most renowned festivals in the EU and US. His recordings of piano works of Mauricio Kagel (Winter & Winter) won nine international prizes. In 2009 he obtained his doctorate at Leiden University (through the docARTES programme) with a dissertation on the theory, history and performance practice of extended piano techniques. Currently he is senior researcher and Principal Investigator of the HIPEX research cluster at the Orpheus Institute.