Emily Worthington – Permanent Seminar Series – October 23, 17:00 CEST / 16:00 BST

Join us to the next seminar of the REM@KE Permanent Seminar Series with our guest speaker, Emily Worthington, on Friday, October 23, starting at 17:00 CEST / 16:00 BST.

Historical Performance as Practice Research: Towards an Interdisciplinary Epistemology

Abstract:
The evolution of the terminology used to describe the field of Historical Performance (Authentic, Original, Historically Informed, Culturally Informed, Historically Inspired…) traces the evolution of understandings and opinions of what it means to explore evidence of past performance practices and historical instruments through the bodies and practice of current practitioners. The discourse around these ideas has done much to critique the idea that we can objectively ‘know’ or ‘recreate’ the sound, actions, or experience of the past, and to explain the relationship of the field to 20th and 21st century culture, as artistic expression and heritage activity. However, it has left us struggling to adequately articulate what kind of knowledge underpins, and is produced by, the work of practitioners in this field. In an academic context, it can appear that we occupy a weak position, unable to claim either the true historical rigour of ‘proper’ musicology, nor the radical creativity of the contemporary arts.
I will argue that we are better served by understanding HP not as a form of ‘applied musicology’ but rather as an extension of the well-established, trans-disciplinary field of practice research. Drawing on theories of practice and embodiment from across the humanities, combined with examples from my own work on the 19th century clarinetist Carl Baermann, I will suggest an epistemological re-framing of HP: a long-overdue update to the understanding of the role of practice and embodied knowledge in the field of historical performance, which has equal implications non-practicing, ‘disembodied’ research into historical sources.

Reading available upon registration: Worthington, Emily. ‘HIP, Embodied Knowledge, and the Practice of Harmoniemusik’. In Practice in Context: Historically Informed Practices in Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music, edited by Claire Holden, Eric F. Clarke, and Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey. Oxford University Press, 2025.

Emily Worthington is Senior Lecturer in Historical Performance Practices at the University of York and a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Instituut in Gent. Previously, Emily held the post of Senior Lecturer in Music Performance at the University of Huddersfield, where she co-directed the interdisciplinary Research Centre for Performance Practices. Emily is a specialist in historical clarinets from the late-18th to early-20th century.
Emily’s research focuses on the performance practices and cultures in the long 19th century, and the epistemology and methodology of embodied historical-artistic research. In 2023 Emily was awarded a substantial Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) grant to support her artistic research into the 19th century clarinetist Carl Baermann and the creation of The Digital Baermann, an online resource for performers and scholars.
Emily regularly appears as a soloist, chamber musician and recitalist in major venues and festivals, and as a guest principal with orchestras around the world. Her recordings as leader of historical wind ensemble Boxwood & Brass were hailed as ‘revelatory’ (Early Music Today) and ‘dazzlingly persuasive’ (BBC Music Magazine). Emily has given masterclasses and lectures at conservatoires including Paris, Brussels, Gent, The Hague, and Sydney, and served on the juries of the International Van Wassenaer Concours in Utrecht and the York Early Music Festival Young Artists Competition. Emily’s writing has appeared in Music & Letters and books published by Oxford University Press and Routledge, as well as numerous magazines, CD booklets and concert programmes.

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