ODC 2012 // Transcription, Translation and Interpretation

May 23, 2012
Orpheus Institute (Ghent, Belgium)

The Second Annual Orpheus Doctoral Conference takes three words as its theme: Transcription, Translation and Interpretation. These terms suggest different possibilities to different musical communities, but common to all perspectives is the idea of distance – temporal, cultural and stylistic – and the rich artistic discourse that emerges from this distance.

It is the distance between transcriber and the material chosen for transcription, a separation that can be a site of enrichment, creativity and re-construction but also of impoverishment and misunderstanding. As a starting point, this conference will examine the following questions:

• What distinguishes transcription and translation?
• What do the roles of transcriber, interpreter and translator entail?
• Insofar as a transcriber uses his musical understanding to examine the materials he will transcribe (which may involve listening to a recording, reading a score, establishing a cultural context…etc), how do the limitations of his perception affect his transcription? What are the positive and negative aspects of misreading?
• Transcription can reify an improvisatory, interactive artistic experience or open a fixed score to improvisation. Transcription can simplify, elaborate, exaggerate, negate, complete or embody its source material. Considering the many functions of transcription, what are the ethics of artistic freedom in this context?

Guest speaker

Guest speaker is Jacopo Baboni Schilingi, composer.