Isabelle de Charrière, née Isabella van Tuyll van Serooskerken, dite Belle van Zuylen (1740-1805), was a multi-talented artist born in The Netherlands and settled – through marriage – in Switzerland. She was known for her literary and compositional output, a dual interest that seems to have led to writing her own libretti for her own operas long before Wagner. (I am told that this practice was likely inspired in part by her friend and pen pal Rousseau, but this just adds more detail to her impressive social status.) Next to an informative Wikipedia lemma, there are two Dutch-French websites devoted to her (here and, more specifically from the literary perspective, here) – some of van Zuylen's music can be appreciated here.
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| Belle van Zuylen |
In 2006, the Association Isabelle de Charrière established a biennial prize to reward a Master’s thesis, written in French, English, or Dutch, focussing on de Charrière and her work or on other female European writers of around 1800. In 2023, the world's oldest society for music history instigated a new award, the Belle van Zuylenprijs, oriented towards both the Bachelor’s and Master’s level artistic research from the Low Countries, thus complementing their existing yearly Hélène Noltheniusprijs for an outstanding academic Master’s thesis.
On the website of the
Royal Dutch Society for Music History, the link between (artistic) research van Zuylen is made clear:
Her work
attests to her inquiring, critical attitude, and she did not shy away from
satirizing the aristocratic milieu in which she dwelled nor from joining her
contemporaries in requesting more and better education for women. She famously
claimed “je n’ai pas les talents subalterns”, freely translated “I do not have
a talent for subservience”.
Last Saturday, the Belle van Zuylen Prize was awarded to the Scottish Nicola Stevenson for her thesis Blowing Zen on the Silver Flute – A Performance Guide for Shakuhachi-Inspired Repertoire Written for the Western Silver Flute (Amsterdam Conservatoire, 2023). The jury commended the project for its original topic, the clear way the context was explained, the chosen method resulting in a practical guide demonstrating the relevance for other musicians, and the well-structured and -illustrated presentation.
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| Nicola Stevenson |
It is noteworthy that the musicological side of the music research sector in this geographic field is interested in AR to the point of desiring a greater validation of artistic research by seeking out its excellence at the pre-doc levels. In fact, until relatively recently, conservatoires didn’t even offer AR to their students before the doctorate. This makes it meaningful that the jury remarked on the high level of the submissions, normally a platitude meant to hide the nonsensical situation of comparing art-based content outside of formal criteria.
The response for this initiative’s first incarnation was enthusiastic: 22 students from 5 conservatoires in The Netherlands and Flanders sent in their theses, of which three reached the final round – next to Nicola Stevens there were, alphabetically, Marta Cecylia Gołka (When Extremes Meet – Compositional Elements of Animals as Leaders’ Music in Writing for a Modern Electric Small Jazz Ensemble; Amsterdam Conservatoire, 2022) and Maris Pajuste & Rúben Borges (Applied Collaborative Practices of Composition Choir of One: A Case Study; Ghent Conservatoire, 2023).
I wish Nicola, Marta,
Maris, and Rúben all the best in their artistic and research careers.
