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Performing by the Book? Musical Negotiations between Text and Act
Since 2000, Jonathan Ayerst has been principal pianist of the contemporary music group Remix Ensemble, based at Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal. In 2024 he was appointed Dozent für Partiturspiel at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHDK) and also organist at the Reformed church in Witikon, Zürich. For many years he has pursued an interest in musical improvisation, focusing on the challenges facing Western classical musicians trained only in reading scores. His PhD thesis, “Learning to Improvise as a Western Classical Musician: A Psychological Study” (2021), is an autoethnographic account of skill-learning in classical improvisation.
Bruno Forment is the principal investigator of the Resounding Libraries research group at the Orpheus Instituut, Ghent. He was previously a researcher at Ghent University, the University of Southern California, and CEMPER, taught at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, KU Leuven, and the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and Ghent, and worked as artistic director, coordinator, and dramaturge at orchestras, conservatories, and heritage centres. His four books and dozens of essays on opera, performance practice, and theatre heritage have received numerous awards and formed the basis of musical productions and policies.
Camilla Köhnken studied piano performance with Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Cologne), Jerome Rose (New York), and Claudio Martínez Mehner (Basel). In 2018, she completed a doctorate on the interpretation strategies of Liszt’s students at the University of Bern working in Kai Köpp’s research project on instructive editions (2014–18). From there she went on to focus on Romantic period instruments during her postdoc in Tom Beghin’s group Declassifying the Classics at the Orpheus Instituut (2019–22). Since 2023, she has lived in Vienna, splitting her time between researching, teaching, and performing, for example as pianist-in-residence at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn or with the Philon Trio.
Born in Singapore, Xiangning Lin is a pianist, researcher, and educator, as well as a curator and producer of interdisciplinary works. She obtained her BA and MA in piano performance at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, National University of Singapore, where she currently teaches courses exploring music within Singapore and Southeast Asian contexts. Her research interest lies in the intersections between cultural history, literature, and music. As an advocate for greater diversity in the arts, Xiangning is a member of the Diversity, Inclusion and Gender Equality Working Group of the Association Européenne des Conservatoires.
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