Research opportunities

Visiting researcher

A visiting researcher is generally an academic/artist-researcher at another institution although the Institute would also consider hosting established practitioners who are freelance and/or are working towards a Doctoral degree or in a post-Doctoral capacity at another institution. Researchers are normally in residence at the Orpheus Institute for a minimum of two weeks up to a maximum of six months. In exceptional cases, longer or shorter periods of residence can be considered.

Benefits

  • The opportunity to work for up to six months with other researchers at the Orpheus Research Centre
  • The chance to contextualize personal research work within the specific research agenda common to all Orpheus Research Centre Fellows: Artistic Experimentation in Music
  • Access to specialized facilities for artistic research in music, including studios for performance, rehearsal and recording, and spaces for lectures and seminars
  • Provision of office space
  • Visiting Researchers may sit in on and, where appropriate, participate in, Orpheus Institute and Orpheus Research Centre events. The Institute can also arrange for visitors to present their work at specific Orpheus Research Centre and Orpheus Institute events, to enable them to meet each other as well as other members of the artistic research community.

Facilities

The Visiting Researcher Programme provides access to Orpheus Institute facilities for a specified period so that the Researcher can work on an agreed topic while in residence.

Facilities include:

  • An international research environment, working at the forefront of developments in artistic research
  • Networked ‘hot desk’ spaces, housed within the newly renovated and purpose-built upper floors of the Orpheus Institute
  • Newly renovated upper floors with further offices, additional performance spaces, an auditorium allowing for approximately 40 people, available for the use of researchers in-house
  • Two large meeting suites, three practice rooms with pianos, recording facilities allowing performers to commit their projects to recording media
  • Library: The Orpheus Institute keeps its own specialized and discipline-specific library, which favors works in music history and theory, aesthetics, performance-oriented and (artistic) philosophical areas, as well as much else. The library currently holds about 7.300 books and journals, and the content is ever-expanding, according to the needs of the researchers in-house
  • Concert Hall (seating ±100 persons). Most lectures and seminars take place in this hall. Besides a grand piano (Steinway) and two harpsichords (Colesse copy and Dulcken copy), audio and video equipment in the hall also offers recording possibilities.

Responsibilities of visiting researchers

  • To sign an Agreement letter in consultation with the Director of the Orpheus Institute, as clarification of the responsibilities of both parties, prior to taking up the role
  • To provide input into the Orpheus Research Centre’s core topic: Artistic Experimentation in Music, through development of links between personal research projects and the current research agenda of the Orpheus Research Centre
  • To explore possible collaborative links between the Visiting Researcher’s home institution and the Orpheus Institute
  • To offer a presentation on their work early in the residency, as a way of introducing their work to the Orpheus Research Centre community and, where appropriate, a presentation at the end, to summarise activities and research outputs
  • To complete a final research report (pro forma), prior to departure from the Institute.

Deadline

Potential Visiting Researchers may submit, and the Orpheus Institute will consider, applications at any time of year.

The admission process

In selecting applicants for Visiting Researcher status, the Orpheus Institute considers the applicant's background, field of interest, artistic identity, scholarly achievement, research proposal, and the relevance to their work to the core aims of the Institute. Applicants are encouraged to make contact with one or more of the existing Orpheus Research Centre Fellows, with the aim of engaging in dialogue about the potential contribution their work might make to the activities of the Orpheus Research Centre community. The applicant may then be selected for an interview, ideally in person, although a long-distance interview may in some circumstances be appropriate.

Visiting Researchers will normally be fluent in English, although those with primary competence in other languages (especially French and German) are not excluded. Visiting Researchers are not salaried by the Institute, nor does the Institute provide living accommodation for the Visiting Researcher, though it may be able to advise on the latter and, by negotiation, to offer a financial contribution toward accommodation costs.

Application information

To apply to the Visiting Researcher Programme, applicants must provide information about themselves through submission of:

  • a curriculum vitae
  • an approximately 2000-word outline of the specific research project proposed, including (1) a time plan and (2) an explanation of how the research will be linked to the Orpheus Research Centre research agenda
  • in the case of recent graduate students, transcripts from each university attended.

Applications should be completed through this form