The word ‘research’ is often associated with science. In music, musicological research has acquired in the last decades recognition in its own right, perhaps by analogy with historical and archeological research. But what can we possibly research in art?

The composer Edgard Varèse often referred to music as art-science. In the Middle Ages, music was taught in the quadrivium along with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy and, in Ancient Greece, music was considered as much a science as it was considered an art. Currently, research attempts to explore various aspects of musical praxis, for example memory, anatomy, psychology, acoustics, interpersonal relationships, instrument making or societal aspects of musical praxis.

(David Baltuch)

David Baltuch’s research focuses on two domains, orchestral conducting and musical semiotics, and may be applied to musical praxis and pedagogy.

David Baltuch explored the art of orchestral conducting in his doctoral thesis and through various lectures he has given. As a starting point, he analyzes and cross-examines testimonies shared by practitioners (instrumentalists, conductors and pedagogues) and compares these testimonies to studies that focus on the above-mentioned aspects of musical praxis (memory, anatomy, psychology, etc.) when they apply to the orchestral situation.

A neighbor to linguistics, semiotics is the science that studies the transmission of meaning through sign, whatever its modality of transmission, be it graphic, sonic or other. Conceiving of music as a system that transmits meaning is susceptible to shed a new light on this millennial praxis.

David Baltuch’s doctoral thesis and several lectures are available on Academia.edu. Two of his lectures are available in the Gallery section (Gallery > Videos > Videos > Research). For a complete list of lectures presented by David Baltuch, please refer to his academic CV (Home-Accueil > Personal (English) > Academic CV).

Professors

David Baltuch’s doctoral studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire (Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK) were supervised by Doctor Liz Garnett, Professor Peter Johnson and Professor Ronald Woodley.