MUSIC

“Once lost is lost", one may think, especially if the piece of forgotten patrimony is an opera from 1850 that is “incomplete, too fragmented and irretrievable”, according to the experts. Except for Dr. David Trippet: like an art restorer holding fine paintbrushes, he has dedicated three years of intensive research to retrieve the unborn opera, bringing the music and libretto back to life 170 years later.

Professor Ananya Jahanara Kabir is a literary and cultural historian at King's College London. Passionate about music, dance, film, the visual arts, academic discourse and literature, she studies what such forms of cultural production can say about the world we live in. With her ERC grant and interdisciplinary team, she leads research on Afro-diasporic rhythm cultures, examining the history and global popularity of African-derived dance practices and their relation to modernity, post-colonialism and post-trauma. Originally published in March 2017 as part of the multimedia campaign "ERC - 10 years – 10 portraits."  

Who has not wanted to compose as catchy a song as Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney or Charlie Parker? French researcher Dr François Pachet has always been fascinated by the mystery of how these great musicians managed to create these amazingly iconic, and strangely addictive, melodies. Thanks to his ERC Advanced Grant, Pachet and his team are working on a software package, ‘FlowMachines’, which will help musicians or writers to explore the magic of creativity and compose music or write books in an easier way. By deciphering the intriguing relations between technology and musical creativity, he aims to offer clues to creators who wish to turn style and its various dimensions into malleable and interactive objects.