The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been defined as the 'age of marvellous' for the extraordinary interest in the aesthetic of wonder, which emerged in literature, figurative arts, artefacts, and music (Kenseth, 1991). The humanistic revival of the ancient Greek and Roman mythology, miracles in religious beliefs, cabinets of curiosities, and surprising reports from travels towards unknown lands are just examples of how the aesthetic of marvel was embedded in the cultural context. The marvellous was considered a category of knowledge and, in René Descartes's words, 'the first of all the passions'. Within this cultural environment, musical instruments found their place among marvellous objects and were considered not only tools to produce sounds, but also objects of wonder and visual fulfilment. 'Sounding marvels' include physical extraordinary objects desired by collectors and played by musicians, as well as imaginary inventions designed by an artist's pencil or crated by a performer's imagination. This dissertation looks at different kinds of marvellous musical instruments: first of all, those beautifully decorated instruments, sometimes made of unusual and/or precious materials; secondly, theatrical musical instruments that were played at court performances, including disguised ones during musical intermedi and fantastical ones played by comedians; finally, imaginary sounding objects depicted in the hands of mythological and divine creatures, or musicians coming from foreign lands. All these musical instruments needed to find a balance between the aesthetic taste of the time and their acoustic and practical functions, which might result completely or partially impaired in favour of their surprising components. This research identifies the phenomenon of marvellous musical instruments as complex sounding and symbolic objects between reality and imagination, and aims to interpret and critically assess their cultural and aesthetic impact within the broader context of the age of marvel and marvellous objects. This study explores the creative process and circulation of such instruments - both physical objects and their representations - and speculate on their functionality and symbolism. Through their evaluation within the cultural context of the time and the comparison with other historical objects of marvel, it will be possible to revaluate this kind of musical instruments or their depictions in museum collections. The complexity of sounding marvels as a cultural phenomenon in late Renaissance Italy requires a multidisciplinary approach to the research. Musical instruments share their materials, technologies and ornaments with other kind of objects. To understand the cultural and aesthetical impact of marvellous musical instruments in late Renaissance, they are positioned inside the production and circulation of other artefacts and objects of marvel. This approach reflects the innovative and emerging perspective of musical instrument studies, thanks to the development of the field of material culture. This multidisciplinary approach demands a variety of type of primary sources: literary documents, iconographies and physical objects are analysed, categorised and compared. The vast corpus of literature about the concept of marvel during the Renaissance proves the relevance of marvellous objects within that society. However, no research has yet addressed the role and significance that musical instruments played in this context. This study is the first one of its kind that critically considers the phenomenon of marvellous musical instruments and will enrich and expand the notion of wondrous objects within the late Renaissance Italian culture of marvel.

Music has always been highly mobile and musicians have been crossing cultural and physical borders for centuries, both voluntarily and as a result of inhospitable ideological, economic and environmental forces in their homelands. This project investigates the relationships that develop between migrants and their adopted host society, and how they manifest in their own creativity, each crucial to evaluating the cultural impact of migration. However, our understanding of the role of mobility and migration in shaping musical culture as a whole is as yet limited. This project brings fresh methodological approaches to the study of the experiences, musical lives and subsequent impact on British musical culture of musicians who came from Nazi-ruled Europe in the 1930s and '40s. Many of them went on to make major contributions to the successful reinvigoration of art music in the ensuing decades. The project will investigate and map the journeys and careers of approximately 30 musicians as they negotiated and helped to form aspects of British musical life in the post-war period as influential teachers, composers and performers, and in major institutions such as opera houses, the BBC, and higher education. It will explore how musical skills, traditions and values were transported and exchanged, and how these interactions affected the migrants themselves, local musicians, and public musical life at large. The project also probes the practical challenges of performing and mediating their compositions-which are defined by multiple trans-national cultural influences and traditions-through a programme of experimental open rehearsal workshops. Selected works by migrant musicians that for various reasons have remained hidden will be explored by professional and student musicians, and contemporarily relevant approaches to their presentation in performance will be tested in public. Through practice-based research, we aim to bring a fresh dimension to conventional musical analysis, highlighting the cultural value of this music for contemporary audiences interested in its broader historical context. The project includes a structured programme of research in a dozen major archives in the UK, Germany and Austria pertaining to this history, and in particular two key institutions, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Anglo-Austrian Music Society in London, both critical in different ways to the impact of this group of migrants on the shaping of post-war British music. Archival and historical research combined with images, oral history interviews and recorded performances will form the basis for the creation of a series of on-line 'story maps' that use geo-visualisation software to present multi-perspective narratives combining text, images, video and audio, and dynamic links to a host of relevant additional resources. From the start of the project we aim to facilitate dialogues between scholars and artists working within the context of mobility and migration today. The project team will develop a theoretical understanding of the relationship between musical cultures, mobility and migration that can benefit future research. A symposium co-hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum will set out the scope and direction of a cross-disciplinary debate; a series of scholarly journal articles by the PI, Co-Is and RAs will develop specific themes; and an international conference co-hosted by the German Historical Institute will extend debate to other examples of music, migration and mobility. Public exhibitions at three partner institutions will complement the project's website, which will integrate the c.30 story maps, institutional case-studies, videos of workshops, performances and oral history interviews, textual commentary, and free-to-download music editions into a rich resource for the benefit of school students, musicians, educators and scholars who wish to find new approaches to our culture, characterised as it is by migration and mobility.

Few pursuits are as dynamic and enjoyable as making music. Each day, thousands of people in the UK engage in some sort of musical activity. Central to these endeavours is good health. Physical and mental wellbeing can shape how musicians, from beginners to professionals, pursue their art and the pleasure they take from it. The results of recent research, however, suggest that injury and ill health are widespread among musicians and that healthy approaches to training and working in music are far from uniform. This project investigates the health and wellbeing of musicians. In doing so, it generates new knowledge of the physical and mental demands of music making and sheds light on the ways in which musicians at all levels meet those demands, both constructively and destructively. While musicians typically have a long history of self-sufficiency in managing the challenges of performing, this project aims to complement musicians' own ingenuity by providing comprehensive, evidence-led resources to help maximise educational and professional opportunities. Musical Impact is a project of Conservatoires UK (CUK), in association with Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Association of British Orchestras (ABO), British Association for Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM), the Musicians' Union, and the International Health Humanities Network (IHHN). Musical Impact operates through three interrelated work packages (WPs). WP1 comprises a four-year study of musicians' physical and mental fitness for performance. While previous research has largely looked at cross-sections of musicians, WP1 takes the form of a large-scale longitudinal study with conservatoire students, staff and alumni, seeking to understand the incidence, extent and development of injuries and ill-health among British musicians. WP1 employs standardized measures of health promotion, anxiety, perfectionism, cardiovascular fitness and physical strength and flexibility, complemented by qualitative exploration of the cultures of musicians' health. WP2 places practice and performance under investigation, documenting their physical and mental demands and the characteristics of musicians who successfully meet those demands. Physiological and biomechanical assessments will be made during the practice and performance of musicians, including the recording and analysis of muscle activity using electromyography and the monitoring of energy expenditure with portable gas analysers. WP3 builds upon WPs 1 and 2, exploring health promotion in music education and the profession and exploring practical applications to enhance training and support services. WP3 includes the development of two programmes of health promotion: one for junior conservatoire students and one for senior conservatoire students. These programmes will be piloted and evaluated through case studies, a questionnaire survey and interviews, before being delivered in full at junior- and senior-programmes across all CUK conservatoires. Musical Impact is the largest research initiative of its kind worldwide. It moves beyond existing research to contribute needed insight into chronic and acute health problems and their impact over time (WP1), the physical and mental demands of music making (WP2), and effective strategies for health promotion (WP3). The project's outcomes will be delivered through a combination of scholarly outputs (including an edited book), six workshops held for music teachers and students, and two freely-available resource packs.

The Listening Gallery will reconnect the V&A's collections with performances of music that share their rich and distinctive pasts. Stemming from extant historical research in music, art and design / as well as extensive practice-based research / the project will offer visitors to the V&A and its website a multisensory experience of popular and elite culture in European, 1100-1800.\n\nNew and existing recordings of music will be integrated into two major projects:\n\n1. International Baroque: A temporary exhibition running from April to July 2009. The exhibition will travel subsequently to other international venues.\n\n2. Medieval and Renaissance Europe: A series of eleven new galleries opening in November 2009. The collection is one of the finest in the world and its redisplay will have a minimum lifespan of 25 years.\n\nThe unparalleled variety of musical styles, genres and instruments that is covered across this period requires musicological knowledge drawn from existing sources. The input provided by performers to early music scholarship is essential, particularly for the earliest works where hands-on music making is often the best means of addressing interpretative and notation questions. Much of this work has been embodied in performance and publication only in the last 40 years, with the weight of it in the last 25, and it is instructive to note that the RCM has trained many of the performer-scholars who are leading this field.\n\nRecordings will be embedded into the galleries, delivered through audio/video-points and through a dedicated website where music and images can be accessed and downloaded.\n\nThe project is distinctive in the quality of recordings to be made (in the research underpinning them and the standard of performance), in the extensive links between music and objects in the gallery displays, and in the application of state-of-the-art technology in delivering a multisensory experience for visitors (e.g. touchscreens with hi-definition headphones at audio/video-points throughout the galleries, and a website).

Professional western classical music training, for most, is conservatoire-based. Students' performance skills, career aspirations, and occupational understandings evolve through institutional guidance, personal, and peer development. Educational experiences are often different, negatively, for those with dyslexia, a recognised learning difference. Existing studies examining dyslexia and music connections are limited, covering remedial interventions, non-specialist tuition, and dyslexic musicians' experience-based advice. Dyslexia in conservatoire is understudied: its unconsidered influences on students' health, wellbeing, performance, and careers, risk disadvantage and discrimination. This research will investigate dyslexia's impact on conservatoire students' musical and academic experiences. It will consider potential implications for enhanced, inclusive practice.