Research Fellow
Pursuing interests in opera, HIP, electronic music and stage design, Bruno Forment has degrees in music theory and art studies (PhD, Ghent University, 2007). In 2004, he teamed up with Paul Dombrecht for one of the earliest Trobadors projects in artistic research at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, the opera seria pasticci Ifigenìa and Ipermestra. Shortly thereafter, in 2007-8, he visited the Flora L. Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California as BAEF Francqui Fellow and Fulbright-Hays grantee. The support of the Flemish Research Fund allowed him to carry out postdoctoral research at Ghent University (2008-2015).
Bruno Forment has taught music and theatre history at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, KU Leuven, and the Royal Conservatoires of Brussels and Ghent. He has programmed and directed the Baroque orchestra Il Fondamento, coordinated the Classical Music department at the Royal Conservatoire of Ghent, and carried out research projects at the Conservatoire of Antwerp and CEMPER-Centrum voor Muziek- en Podiumerfgoed.
He is the author and editor of (Dis)embodying Myths in Ancient Régime Opera (Leuven UP, 2012), Theatrical Heritage: Challenges and Opportunities (Leuven UP, 2015, with Christel Stalpaert), Zwanenzang van een illusie: de historische toneeldecors van de Schouwburg Kortrijk (KGOKK, 2016), Muziek en literatuur / Literature and Music (Cahier voor Literatuurwetenschap, 2018, with Inge Arteel), and Droomlanders: tovenaars van het geschilderde toneeldecor (Davidsfonds/CEMPER, 2021). He also published dozens of articles and reviews in, among others, Cambridge Opera Journal, Eighteenth-Century Music, Early Music, and Fontes Artis Musicæ, next to book chapters in Staging Verdi and Wagner (Brepols, 2015), and Carmen Abroad (Cambridge UP, 2020). His work, which includes several professional music (theatre) productions and the discovery of Europe’s largest collection of historical stagesets (the ‘Dubosq’ collection, recognized Flemish top heritage in 2018), has been awarded by the Schweizerische Musikforschende Gesellschaft and the Province of Western Flanders. He is on the editorial board of Eighteenth-Century Music.
