Prof. Dr. Evelyn Buyken

Musicologist and cellist Evelyn Buyken conducts research and works at the intersection of artistic practice and music-related disciplines. She is currently a fellow of the Young Scholars Program at the Academy of Sciences and Arts in North Rhine-Westphalia. Starting in the summer semester of 2024, she will serve as acting professor of Historical Musicology at the University of Siegen.

Until 2023, she held the junior professorship for artistic research at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, where she founded the Institute for Artistic Research. From 2020 to 2023, she led the international research project RAPP Lab (Reflection-based Artistic Professional Practice,  www.rapplab.eu), which developed artistic-research methods for teaching at conservatories. Previously, she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Cologne and at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. Her current research focuses on multisensory sound research and discourses in sound studies; embodied knowledge practices; feminist theory and posthuman discourses; historically informed performance practice; transdisciplinary knowledge and performance practices at the intersection of music and dance, and institutional and pedagogical knowledge in artistic research. She publishes, performs, gives international lectures, and leads workshops and continuing education programs—particularly on artistic research and its institutionalization at German conservatories.

Evelyn is a cellist and the founder of the Cölner Barockorchester; she also works as a concert dramaturg and music educator. Her concert and educational projects have received funding from the Kunst-Stiftung NRW and the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Evelyn studied school music, German language and literature, and educational sciences, as well as Baroque cello and viola da gamba, at the Cologne University of Music and Dance and at universities in Cologne and Rome. She earned her doctorate with a dissertation on Bach culture before 1829 in the early Jewish salons of Berlin, for which she received funding from the interdisciplinary graduate school a.r.t.e.s. (University of Cologne) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. In 2022–23, she received a research grant from the Kunststiftung NRW for her research on intersubjective performance practices in ensembles.

The musicologist and cellist Evelyn Buyken conducts research and works at the intersection of artistic practice and music-related sciences. She is currently a fellow of the Junge Kolleg at the Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts in North Rhine-Westphalia. Starting in the summer semester of 2024, she will hold the professorship in Historical Musicology at the University of Siegen.

Until 2023, she held the Junior Professorship for Artistic Research at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, where she founded the Institute for Artistic Research. From 2020 to 2023, she served as principal investigator (PI) of the international research project RAPP Lab (Reflection-based Artistic Professional Practice, www.rapplab.eu), which developed artistic research methods at institutions of higher music education. She previously worked as an assistant professor at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Cologne and at the Cologne University of Music and Dance (HfMT). Her current research focuses on multisensory sound research and discourses in sound studies, embodied knowledge practices, feminist theory and posthuman discourses, historically informed performance practice, transdisciplinary knowledge and performance practices at the intersection of music and dance, and institutional and pedagogical knowledge in artistic research. She publishes, gives concerts, lectures internationally, and leads workshops, particularly on artistic research and its institutionalization at German institutions of higher music education.

Evelyn is a cellist and founder of the Cologne Baroque Orchestra and works as a concert dramaturg and music educator. Her concert and educational projects have received grants from the Kunst-Stiftung NRW and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Evelyn studied music, German, and educational science, as well as Baroque cello and viola da gamba, at the Cologne University of Music and Dance and the universities of Cologne and Rome. She completed her dissertation on Bach culture before 1829 in the early Jewish salons of Berlin and was funded by the interdisciplinary graduate school a.r.t.e.s. (University of Cologne) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. In 2022–23, she received a research grant from the Kunststiftung NRW for her research on intersubjective performance practices in the ensemble.

Monographs

The Reception of Bach as a Cultural Practice. Johann Sebastian Bach in Berlin between 1750 and 1829 (= Supplements to the Archive for Musicology 81), Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 2018, ISBN 978-3-515-12058-6

Repositories of Musical Knowledge. Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Scholarship and Practice (= Die Tonkunst, 2/2019), edited by Evelyn Buyken, Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild, and Melanie Unseld, ISSN 1863-3536

Passions: Suffering and Passions in Music around 1800 (= Music – Culture – History 7), edited by Evelyn Buyken, Carola Bebermeier, and Gesa Finke, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2017, ISBN 978-3-8260-6175-2

Articles (peer-reviewed)

2025

(with Katrin Losleben) “More than Waves: Sound and the Multisensory Accompaniment in a Basso Continuo Group.” In: S. Sanio and J. Schroeder, *Sound in Artistic Research* (= *Sound Studies & Sonic Art Readers*), Hamburg: Wolke (forthcoming)

(with Katrin Losleben) “Crying Feet: What Walking Knows About the Funeral March.” In: European Journal of Musicology (under peer review).

2024

How Do Cellists and Sounds “Become” with Each Other? Exploring the Entanglements of Artistic Research and Agential Realism. In: Music & Practice 11/2024.https://www.musicandpractice.org/volume-11/how-do-cellists-and-sounds-become-with-each-other/

2023

How Fast Is Fast Enough? Experiences and Findings in Technical, Digital, and Artistic Work with Low-Latency Performances. Open-access publication on www.researchgate.net, co-authored with Sebastian Spicker, DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.20841.88168

Living (with) choice. Improvisation and the intimacy of doingness (in collaboration with Constanze Schellow and Allison Brown), open-access publication onwww.researchgate.net http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28378.52164

RAPP Lab Outcomes, in: Research Catalogue. An International Database for Artistic Research,https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1673421/2210917

Artistic Research in Early Music. In: R. Lorber (ed.), Early Music Today: History and Perspectives of Historical Performance Practice. A Handbook, Kassel: Bärenreiter 2023, ISBN: 978-3-7618-7246-8, pp. 226–234

2022

On Mushrooms in Bags and Rubber Bands. Some Fragmented Remarks on Artistic Research at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. In: JAR (Journal for Artistic Research / Network-Channel), online publication

2021

Empathy as a Fundamental Prerequisite for Musical Practice. Dimensions of the Experience of Empathy in a Musical Ensemble, Using the Example of an Experimental Concert. In: T. Breyer, M. L. Herzfeld-Schild, E. Miteva, J. Schick (eds.): Melancholy and Empathy (= DGAP Series), Freiburg: Alber, ISBN 978-3-495-49146-1, pp. 131–149

Where Is the Audience? A Self-Report with Digressions, in: Medien. The JOURNAL of the HfMT Cologne (Issue 2, June 2021), ed. by Rainer Nonnenmann, pp. 34–37

2020

On the Epistemological Quality of Bodily Experiences in Musical Practice. Examples of Artistic Research with Students at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. In: Arnold Jacobshagen (ed.), Music That Creates Knowledge! Perspectives on Artistic Research (= Music-Culture-History 13), Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, ISBN 978-3-8260-6989-5, pp. 263–280

“Wild Learning”? Music Education Concepts as the Key to Domestic and Family-Based Music Learning in Berlin around 1800. In: Sabine Meine/Henrike Rost (eds.) Resonant Interiors: ‘Gender’ Perspectives on an Aesthetic and Social Practice in the Private Sphere (= Music–Culture–History 12), Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, ISBN 978-3-8260-7125-6, pp. 137–150

2019

How We Know What We Do: Artistic Research at the HfMT Cologne. In: NMZ (University Magazine), December 2019/January 2020, p. 10

Embodied Knowledge. (Historical) Perspectives on the Performing Body in Musical Practice (with Sara Hubrich). In: E. Buyken, M. L. Herzfeld-Schild, M. Unseld (eds.), Repositories of Musical Knowledge. Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Scholarship and Practice (= Die Tonkunst, 2/2019), Weimar, ISSN 1863-3536, pp. 202–215

Repositories of Musical Knowledge: Concepts Between Scholarship and Practice. An Introduction. In: E. Buyken, M. L. Herzfeld-Schild, M. Unseld (eds.). Repositories of Musical Knowledge. Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Academia and Practice (= Die Tonkunst, 2/2019), Weimar, ISSN 1863-3536, pp. 147–155

2017

Are Passions Passionate? A Contribution to a History of Listening to J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. In: E. Buyken, C. Bebermeier, G. Finke (eds.). Passions: Suffering and Passions in Music around 1800, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, ISBN 978-3-8260-6175-2, pp. 105–120

Musical Practice, Gender, and Politics, or How Critical Are James Gillray’s Musical Caricatures? In: M. Unseld (ed.), *Delights of Harmony: James Gillray as a Caricaturist of English Musical Culture around 1800*, Cologne: Böhlau, ISBN 978-3-412-50789-3, pp. 19–33

Videos

MoreThanWaves. Multisensory Rehearsal Research. Videographic documentation with the Basso Continuo Group of the Cologne Baroque Orchestra, April 2022https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0kIVj9hR8k

Intersubjective Emotions, or How We Become an Ensemble. Video documentation featuring the Basso Continuo section of the Cologne Baroque Orchestra, February 2023https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZpnGSC70CI

Unpublished Lectures

“Becoming-with in the Sonic,” lecture in the “Sound in Artistic Research” lecture series at the Berlin University of the Arts (January 2024)

“Artistic Research in Higher Music Education: Catalyst for a New Relationship Between Music, Education, and Society?”, AEC Annual Meeting, Royal Conservatoire The Hague (November 2023)

“Playful Micro-Metamorphoses, or How We Become Through Sound,” lecture as part of the lecture series “Metamorphoses of the Human” at the Cologne University of Music and Dance (January 2023)

“RAPP Lab – Introduction to the Project,” lecture as part of the international AEC Congress in Lyon (November 2022)

“Make the (Un)Familiar (Un)Familiar Again,” lecture as part of the RAPP Lab online multiplier event (via Zoom) together with Prof. Johannes Kretz (Vienna) and Theodore Parker (EAMT Tallinn) (November 2022)

“On Rubber Bands and Mushroom Networks: Artistic Research as the Art of Relation,” lecture as part of the conference “Quo vadis Artistic Research” at the Mannheim University of Music (October 2022)

“Between Art, Science, and Pedagogy—Artistic Research Today,” lecture as part of the symposium marking the 50th anniversary of Franziska Martienßen-Lohmann’s death at the Robert Schumann University of Music in Düsseldorf (October 2021)

“Reflection-Based Artistic Professional Practice”; keynote address at the symposium “Developing Critical Reflection and Cognitive Skills in Art Practice,” European Academy for Music and Performing Arts, Montepulciano (September 2021)

“On the Potential of Artistic Research for Musicology”; lecture as part of the GfM conference in Bonn and chairing of the panel “Artistic Turn? Artistic Research as a Challenge for Musicology” as part of the GfM Annual Conference in Bonn in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Arnold Jacobshagen, Prof. Dr. Sabine Meine, Prof. Dr. Melanie Unseld, Prof. Johannes Kretz, and Prof. Dr. Jan Hemming (September 2021)

“Dimensions of Experiencing Empathy in a Music Ensemble Using the Example of a Digital and Interactive Education Project”; EPARM (European Platform for Artistic Research in Music) International Annual Conference (March 2021)

“‘Performed’ Emotions: Body, Music, and Emotion in the Context of Artistic Research”; presentation as part of the international conference “Music in the Body—Body in Music: The Body at the Intersection of Musical Practice and Discourse” at the University of Göttingen (September 2019)

“Learning by Performing? Emotions as Embodied Knowledge in Pedagogical Treatises around 1750” at the international conference “Music – Bodies – Emotions: Early Modern Perspectives” at the University of Cambridge (July 2019)

“In Parlors, Halls, and Salons, or How Bach’s Music Made Its Way into the 19th Century” as part of the symposium “Bach nach Bach” organized by the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival at the Lübeck University of Music (July 2019)

“Moving Music, Moving Bodies: Insights into Artistic-Scholarly Research with Students at the Cologne University of Music and Dance” as part of the lecture series “Art That Creates Knowledge: Perspectives on Artistic Research” at the Cologne University of Music and Dance (November 2018)

“‘Wild Learning’? Domestic Music Practice around 1800” as part of the conference “Teaching Music—Learning Music” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (November 2017)

“Who Controls the Purse Strings and Why? Concepts of Female Cultural Patronage between the 17th and 20th Centuries” as part of the lecture series “Money Talks—The Value of Music” at the Cologne University of Music and Dance (November 2016)

“‘The True, Chaste Manner’—Discourses on Bach in the Letters of Lea Mendelssohn Bartholdy” as part of the open-topic workshop organized by the Women’s and Gender Studies Section of the Society for Music at the Cologne University of Music and Dance (April 2016)

Becoming-with in the Sonic. Multisensory Sound Research (in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Katrin Losleben, Arctic University of Tromsø)

As scholars and artists specializing in feminist theory and artistic research, Katrin Losleben and Evelyn Buyken are a research duo with a strong interest in the question of how we become through sound. Karen Barad’s concept of intra-active becoming-with provides us with the perspective and medium for researching in and through sound. Our focus is on the relationships between the parameters of sound—human and non-human bodies, materials, and space—and how they come together in instrumental performances and environmental sounds. We also explore the implications of this non-static approach to co-becoming through sound for music-making, musical learning, our humanity, and our engagement with climate change.

Artistic Research

Artistic research is a multifaceted field with which I have been intensively engaged for over five years. Artistic research has a long international tradition and is currently becoming increasingly widespread at German conservatories and universities as well. It is based on an open concept of research that understands artistic practice itself as a form of knowledge production—knowledge that is usually deeply internalized, preconscious, and, above all, strongly embodied.
Artistic research takes as its starting point the implicit and embodied forms of practice, seeking to make these visible through experimentation and thereby transform both art itself and our understanding of art. The development of a “research-oriented” perspective on artistic processes is intended to help bring artistic and scholarly perspectives into direct resonance and to provide students and faculty with new or unfamiliar impulses for their work. And this involves more than just the categories of analysis—such as work-analytical, biographical, cultural-historical, or form-specific—that we apply to music or artistic material. The interplay between cultural-historical and artistic-research-based analysis offers great potential for music research understood in the broadest sense. Artistic research connects phenomena that are usually considered separately—such as the creation and presentation of knowledge—and renegotiates the roles of the researching subject and the researched object, a development that is already taking hold in the social sciences and humanities.
Artistic research draws on a wide range of individual and collaborative research formats: laboratories, experiments, empirical field research, intervention, critical reflection, action research, and qualitative research. It is commonly understood that artistic practice itself serves as the starting point for research.

RAPP Lab (Reflection-based Artistic Professional Practice) Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships (2020–2023, led by Dr. Evelyn Buyken)

RAPP Lab is a European research project that establishes new teaching and learning formats for artistic degree programs based on artistic research methods. In artistic laboratories, RAPP Lab investigates the conditions and modes of action of reflection within and on art. Informed by artistic research, the settings developed in this project are intended to supplement existing artistic degree programs with exploratory and improvisational modes of knowledge production. The goal is to explore reflection in artistic practice as a “holistic” phenomenon—in the sense of a multilayered, reciprocal, and interwoven process that encompasses both contemplation, tracing, a search within sound or movement, as well as a linguistic or theory-based dimension.
Together with our partners (HfMT Cologne, mdw Vienna, NMH Oslo, Santa Cecilia Rome, the Tallinn Music Academy, and the Orpheus Institute in Ghent), we have developed six thematic fields of experimentation. These were aimed at testing various methods for promoting (self-)reflexivity and critical thinking in artistic practice, developing concrete methods from these experiments, and translating them into reproducible materials.
Information about the project can be found on the website (www.rapplab.eu). All results, documentation, and in-depth explanations are available on the international database Research Catalogue (https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1673421/2210917).

“Artistic Music Research: Potential and Perspectives for Artistic and Scholarly Music Research in the German-Speaking World”

I am a member of the newly formed academic research team in the international research project “Artistic Music Research: Potential and Perspectives for Artistic and Academic Music Research in the German-Speaking World,” which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (project duration: 2022–2025).