The performing body as creative agent in music-making: exploring physical, kinaesthetic and multi-sensorial dimensions of music creation
In my research as a cellist, I investigate how involving the performing body in the compositional process of new music pieces can shape this creative process and its resulting musical outcomes. This includes examining the influence of bodily states, physical sensations, kinaesthetic experience and perception (touch, sound, vision) on music creation. I observe what outcomes arise from this conjunction in terms of musical material, form, duration, bodily expression and sensoriality. My research questions are: What methods involving the performing body can guide the creation of improvised and composed music? How can the instrumentalist’s perceptual, kinaesthetic and bodily experiences influence the creation and formation of sound materials?
My project is situated within artistic and embodiment research and artistically rooted in contemporary Western art music. It positions the performer’s body not as a mere medium of execution, but as a factor co-constituting musical composition and as a primary site of investigation.
To investigate this, I use experimentation with the cello as the main form of inquiry. I work in collaboration with composers on the creation of new pieces, develop an improvisation practice together with other musicians and study and analyse existing pieces from the contemporary music repertoire that involve the body as a significant performative and compositional element. Through these practices I collect phenomenological observations, reflections, and audiovisual recordings, and analyse and compare musical outcomes to generate insights which reshape instrumental and compositional practice.
With this work, I aim to develop music-creation methods that treat the performing body as compositional material, and thereby to deepen bodily awareness and perceptual engagement with sound material and musical form.
First supervisor: Univ. Prof. Dr. Barbara Lüneburg, ABU
Second supervisor: Univ. Prof. Dr. Annegret Huber, mdw
Biography
Anna Grenzner is a cellist specialized in contemporary music and an improviser who expands the borders of her music-making towards the interaction with body movement, text and thought. She is a member and artistic co-director of the LaKT Ensemble for choreo-musical research and performs regularly across Europe as ensemble and chamber musician, as well as with solo projects. Member of the ensembles LaKT, Zeitfluss, Coincidence and STIO, she has performed in festivals such as Musikprotokoll Graz, Kultursommer Wien, Festival Ensems, Festival Mixtur, Klangspuren Schwaz, Festival Resis or Tiroler Festspiele Erl. Further collaborations include those with Schallfeld Ensemble or Arxis Ensemble.
She studied her masters in the University of Arts of Graz with Klangforum Wien and her Bachelor in the Conservatori del Liceu of Barcelona, and is currently pursuing an artistic research doctoral program at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. Anna Grenzner has worked with and been mentored by musicians from Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Ascolta, Ensemble Modern and Ensemble Recherche. In the field of improvisation she has worked with Jöelle Leandre, Elisabeth Harnik, Paul Abbott or Gunda Gottschalk. Her work has been recognized a.o. with the scholarship Startstipendium für Musik from the Austrian Ministry of Culture in 2023 as well as a grant to pursue the Creation and Scenario in Music programme at ZHdK in Zurich in 2024.