Papers by Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey
Oxford University PressNew York eBooks, Apr 23, 2023
Together in Music, 2021
Empirical research into large ensemble performance has crossed many disciplinary boundaries from ... more Empirical research into large ensemble performance has crossed many disciplinary boundaries from music education to management studies, and has included the investigation of musicians’ interpersonal coordination and communication, group creativity and decision-making, conductors’ gestures, group musical expression, the social organization of large groups and their leadership, audience perceptions of performances, the individual and social benefits of participation, and rehearsal practices. However, there are still relatively few empirical studies of large ensemble performance, due to the social and practical factors that make it challenging to collect research data from large numbers of people engaged in a complex musical activity. Technological developments have increasingly expanded the research methods available to include sophisticated audio capture and analysis, web-based video-stimulated recall, and motion capture. This chapter discusses the challenges faced by researchers inv...
Music Performance Research, 2020
This special edition positions "conducting studies" in 2020 as a dynamic, multifaceted and multid... more This special edition positions "conducting studies" in 2020 as a dynamic, multifaceted and multidisciplinary research field. Shifting the focus of "conducting studies" beyond the longestablished paradigms of (auto)biography and standard technical manuals, it presents distinctive new scholarship drawn from the Oxford Conducting Institute's (OCI) international conferences. The three OCI conferences to date have provided a melting pot for discussions between practising conductors, those engaged in practice as research, theorists, and musicologists. The range of topics and methodologies captured in the conference programmes (2016, 2018, 2019) 1 provides a valuable representation of the ways in which research is developing. The diverse range of methodologies generated across themes and topics signals the potential for dialogue and strengthened links between practice and research: practitioner-researchers are featuring more strongly than ever before. Interdisciplinary tools and approaches are informing and shaping new understandings of an array of issues, including: gender; performance psychology; technologically informed and measured research on gesture, tempi, dynamics, articulation and diction; performance traditions; acoustics; audience response and so on. This special edition therefore shows that conducting studies in 2020 is both building on-and breaking away from-the structures that have determined its preoccupations and characteristics. Fascination with conductors-what they do, and how and why they do it-has occupied writers since the "baton" conductor took centre stage in the mid-nineteenth century.
Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 2020
The nineteenth century saw a number of significant changes in European musical culture, including... more The nineteenth century saw a number of significant changes in European musical culture, including changes in the size and nature of the orchestra and the rise of the modern conductor. The coordination and musical leadership of orchestras has taken a variety of forms historically, but from around the middle of the nineteenth century silent conducting gradually began to supplant other forms of time keeping and instrumental leadership in opera and concert orchestras. Little or no empirical work has attempted to investigate the musical, social and perceptual consequences of this development, largely due to the technical challenges that must be addressed. This article describes the development and implementation of innovative digital methods to provide a detailed and multifaceted picture of a large ensemble in action, investigating the consequences of different distributions of individual musical agency for: 1) musicians’ playing experiences; 2) ensemble coordination and expressive timin...
Collaborative and Distributed Processes in Contemporary Music-Making, (eds.) Lauren Redhead and Richard Glover, 2018
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2013
Exploring the manner in which professional identity formation in emerging conductors is entangled... more Exploring the manner in which professional identity formation in emerging conductors is entangled with the cultural context of orchestras, I focus on the amorphous evolution from a student identity to that of a professional, illuminating some underlying social conditions of the ever-elusive profession of conducting. Prevailing assumptions about professionalism and orchestral practice are addressed, and I consider the implications of these issues for emerging conductors of the twenty-first century. Although one's own status as a professional musician can be a delicate subject indeed, in this article I reflect on a period of time during the early years of my conducting career: a transition bracketed by distinctive moments of identity formation. In doing so I offer not an ethnography, but a particular experience-one that transformed my conception of orchestral music-making from a product-centric approach to one that is practice-inspired.
Thesis Chapters by Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey
University of Oxford, DPhil Thesis, 2016
This thesis takes as its starting point the observation that the authorship of the creative produ... more This thesis takes as its starting point the observation that the authorship of the creative product of orchestral performances has been, and continues to be, over-attributed to the conductor. This is reflected both in popular perceptions and in the scholarly attention given to the conductor’s leadership role, as well as in orchestral practices which privilege the conductor’s artistically superior position within the orchestra through rehearsal and performance rituals and in remuneration and marketing. Although existing research has challenged the perception that the authority of the conductor is absolute, none has offered alternative explanations for how best to attribute the authorship of orchestral performances. Through a three-phased mixed-methods empirical study including an online questionnaire, in-depth interviews, and a newly developed method of data collection utilising an online variation of video-stimulated recall to capture musician experiences in real-life rehearsal and performance settings, this research contributes to an understanding of the social psychology of orchestral performance by identifying what prompts musicians’ decision-making regarding how and when to play their parts. The analysis of the data has resulted in the development of a theoretical Framework of Influence and Action in Orchestral Performance that offers a new way of conceptualising authorship in performance through a ‘theory of influence’. It concludes with an exploration of the implications of this revised view of authorship for existing orchestral practices, group creativity research, and our understanding of how the relationships enacted in the microsocialities of orchestral performance reflect larger social formations.
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Papers by Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey
Thesis Chapters by Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey