Music Research Seminar: Katalin Koltai

Katalin Koltai (Royal Academy of Music) will join us to present on 'Open Frets Guitar: Transforming Guitar Textures in Arrangements and New Music'

Location: Lecture Theatre 2, School of Music

This event is part of the 2024/25 Music Research Seminar Series.

Speaker bio:

Dr Katalin Koltai is an innovative guitarist, practice-based researcher and the inventor of the Open Frets Guitar, based at the Royal Academy of Music. Her research expands the horizons of guitar performance, through developing repertoire with novel features, utilising new technology in arrangements and collaborative work with composers.

Abstract:

The Open Frets Guitar is an augmented instrument, featuring a magnet capo system, which allows the play of any combination of fretted notes, radically extending the guitar’s voicing and harmonic capacities, and offering creative opportunities in various fields. The development of this instrumental design started as a new music project, called the Ligeti Guitar Project, arranging György Ligeti’s piano piece, Musica ricercata for guitar.

A literature review on instrumental space, embodiment and instrumental choreography provides the terminological grounds for the talk through the theoretical framework of De Souza, Zbikowski, Gibson et al. This leads to a contextual and conceptual introduction examining diverse perspectives of the guitar space and its transformation in composition and guitar arrangement.

The body of the lecture describes the new affordances of the transformed guitar space of the Open Frets Guitar by turning to case studies examining its utilisation in three arrangements (Bartók: The Night’s Music; Ligeti: Musica ricercata, no. 2; Chopin: Berceuse) and a new composition by Scott McLaughlin. The conclusion of the presentation discusses the limitations and further affordances of the Open Frets Guitar.

This will be a hybrid event. The guest speaker will be present with us in the School of Music, and colleagues and other guests are encouraged to join us there. But if you are unable to do so then please consider joining us via Zoom.

No booking is required. Those wishing to attend online should contact series convenor Dr Ellis Jones (e.n.jones@leeds.ac.uk).