Research Seminar: Dr Nicholas Kennedy

Contemporary and Canonical: A Performer Reflects on Musical Knowing

Reflecting the dismantling of Werktreue ideology and the turn towards performances rather than scores as objects of musicological enquiry, much scholarship in recent years has explored the various ways in which performers know, and the knowledge embedded in, garnered through, and transmitted via performance. Contemporary music, with its sometimes unfamiliar language and notational idiosyncrasies, provides a fertile site for this enquiry. A growing body of literature has investigated the unique dynamics of expression in this repertoire, as well as the practical strategies deployed by performers wishing to master it. In this talk, I will explore how a performer’s ways of making sense of brand-new music relate to and differ from their approach to this task in canonical works, and how these two understandings influence each other. I will do so by reflecting on my own recent experiences working on and premiering Sydney-based composer Adam Melzer’s Miniatures, alongside canonical works. 

Findings from this case study suggest that the performer’s approach to “knowing” a brand-new work in fact bears significant similarities to their approach to older music. In both repertoires, there is a constant interplay between a performer’s emotional or intellectual parsing of the music and the mechanics of how they perform it. Analysis is shown to infuse every step of this process, both in the iterative, experimental process of practice and the performer’s instincts to present works in such a way as to facilitate the audience’s parsing. Entrenched interpretive traditions, related to power structures within the Classical music industry, bear heavily on the performer’s comprehension of older music and—perhaps surprisingly—new music, too. However, collaboration with a composer is shown to soften the performer’s strictness towards these traditions and revitalise their approach to older as well as contemporary works. In sum, this talk speaks to the diverse ways in which performers know different kinds of repertoire, and—simultaneously—recreate, co-create, and simply create. 
 

Pianist and scholar Dr Nicholas Kennedy is one of Australia’s most exciting musicians and musical thinkers. He completed his undergraduate studies on full scholarship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM), graduating with First Class Honours and the University Medal, before earning a Master of Music (Distinction) as a Leverhulme Arts Scholar at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, and a PhD from SCM. His mentors have included Joan Havill, Clemens Leske, Gerard Willems, Rita Reichman, and Charles Owen.

Praised for his “stirring, magnetic, and powerful” interpretations (ArtsHub), Nicholas has performed throughout Australia and internationally as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist. Among other competition accolades, he won the Open Instrumental section of the Australian Concerto and Vocal Competition in 2023. He released his debut album, The Last Piano Sonatas, in 2021.  

Nicholas is also an active researcher specialising in nineteenth-century piano music and the relationship between analysis and performance, with a range of artistic research outputs and journal publications in The Chopin Review and forthcoming in The Beethoven Journal.

He is a sought-after adjudicator for competitions including Sydney Eisteddfod, the Palladian Intercollegiate Competition, and the Musicological Society of Australia Student Symposium. In 2026, he will travel to Surabaya, Indonesia, to adjudicate and give masterclasses. Nicholas is currently an Associate Lecturer in Collaborative Piano and Musicology at SCM.