Curriculum Vitae Dr. Jedidiah Wentz
Present Position (since 2022):
Artistic Director
Overacting: Theatre Event Leiden
Present Position (since 2017):
Assistant Professor
Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
Leiden University
Present Position (since 2012):
Artistic adviser
Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht (The Utrecht Early Music Festival)
Stichting Organisatie Oude Muziek
1994-2021:
Teacher of historical flutes and of courses related to Early Music
Conservatorium van Amsterdam
2012-2017:
Advisor Master Programme
Conservatorium van Amsterdam
2014-2016:
Researcher ‘Ina Lohr Project’
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
2021-2022:
Leader 'Expressing Emotions Project'
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
Summary
My work revolves around the historically informed styles of music-making and declamation. I am interested in the period 1680-1930, from Racine to the advent of sound film. I am professionally active as a performer, teacher and researcher.
I have performed with major Early Music ensembles (Musica Antiqua Köln, Gabrielli Consort, Les Musiciens du Louvre, etc.) and have recorded more than 30 CDs, as flutist and conductor, both with my own and with other ensembles.
Since 2012 I have also been artistic advisor to the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the largest event of its kind in the world. In this capacity I am also responsible for organizing the yearly international STIMU symposium, a three-day event that brings together scholars and performers from various disciplines in order to look at issues of performance practice (taken in the broadest sense). I am also Artistic director of Overacting: Theatre Event Leiden, a collaborations between the Utrecht Early Music Festival, The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, and the Leidse Schouwburg.
I am assistant professor at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts of Leiden University, where I supervise doctorates in the field of practice-based research.
My scholarly work focuses on 17th- to 20th-century acting and oratorical styles (declamation and gesture) and their implications for musical performance (both operatic and purely instrumental). Another topic of interest is the importance of political and religious pressures on the nascent Early Music Movement and the resulting 20th-century Early Music aesthetic. I have published, among others, in Cambridge Opera Journal, Early Music (guest editor), European Drama and Performance Studies (guest editor), The Riemenschneider Bach Journal, Music in Art and the Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis.
Full CV
Languages:
English, Dutch, German and French.
Education:
Ph. D. 2010 Universiteit van Leiden (advisor: Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Cornell University)
Master of Music 1985 Koninklijke Conservatorium Den Haag
Bachelor of Music 1981 The Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Previous Employment in Education:
1988-1994 Hilversumse Conservatorium, historical flutes
1990-1993 Conservatoire national de région de Caen, performance practice
1990-2011 Royal Academy of Music, London, yearly guest lectures
Staged opera productions (musical director):
W. A. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro (2002)
G. F. Handel: Arianna in Creta (2003)
W. A. Mozart: Entführung aus dem Serail (2007)
J.-P. Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie (2009)
Staged theatrical productions (acting coach):
G. Benda: Medea (2014)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Pygmalion (2015)
G. Benda: Medea (2016)
Awards:
International Cini Prize, Venice, awarded to: Vivaldi, Alla Rustica, Fidelio Classics #9217.
International Cini Prize, Venice, awarded to: Locatelli, Flute Sonatas op. 2, Vanguard Classics #99098/99.
Diapason d’Or, awarded to: J. S. Bach, Complete Chamber Music for Flute.
Irene Alm Memorial Prize, awarded to: ‘Roxana’s Dance: The Persuasive Footwork of Defoe’s Fortunate Mistress’.
Research Interests:
Declamation and historical acting techniques.
The history of Early Music in the 20th century.
Selected Recordings with Musica ad Rhenum:
A. Vivaldi - Alla Rustica and other concerti (Fidelio Classics #9217). Cini Prize.
P. A. Locatelli - XII Sonate op. 2 (Vanguard Classics #99098/99), liner notes. Cini Prize.
W. A. Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito (Brilliant Classics 99736/1-2).
G. Fr. Handel - Flute Sonatas (Vanguard Classics #99189), liner notes.
W. A. Mozart - Flute Quartets (Vanguard Classics #99176), liner notes.
F. Couperin - Chamber Music (complete) (Brilliant Classics #92178/1-7), liner notes.
G. Ph. Telemann - Paris Quartets (Brilliant Classics 93649/1-3), liner notes.
J. S. Bach - Complete Chamber Music for Flute (Brilliant Classics 93814), liner notes. Diapason D’or.
C. Ph. E. Bach –Complete Flute Sonatas with Basso Continuo (Brilliant Classics 94323), liner notes.
J. H. Roman – 12 Sonatas for Flute and B.C. (Brilliant 95214), liner notes.
Recording with Artem Belogurov:
The Pied Piper and Other Melodramas (Brilliant 96245), liner notes.
Online Publications:
'H. R. and the formation of an early music aesthetic in the Netherlands (1916-1921)', RIMAB: Reseach portal of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Fall 2016).
See: http://www.rimab.ch/content/research-projects/project-ina-lohr-1/papers-from-the-project-ina-lohr/h-r-and-the-formation-of-an-early-music-aesthetic-in-the-netherlands-1916-1921 .
Peer Review Publications (guest editor):
Early Music, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (February 2014).
European Drama and Performance Studies, 2015-1, no. 4 (special issue 'Dance and the United Provinces').
European Drama and Performance Studies, 2022-2, no. 19.
Peer Review Publications (author):
‘Sonority in the 18th Century: un poco più forte?’, with Willem Kroesbergen, in Early Music, vol. XXII, issue 3 (August: 1994), 413-496.
‘The Passions Dissected, or, on the dangers of boiling down Alexander the Great’, in Early Music, vol. 37, Issue 1 (2009), 101-112.
‘Gaps, Pauses and Expressive Arms: Reconstructing the Link between Stage Gesture and musical Timing at the Académie Royale de Musique’, in Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 32, no. 4 (December 2009), 607-623.
‘Gustav Maria Leonhardt in Basel: portrait of a young harpsichordist’, with Anne Smith, in Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis XXXI (2010), 229-244.
‘Deformity, delight and Dutch dancing dwarfs: an 18th-century suite of prints from the United Provinces’, in Music in Art, Vol. XXXVI (2011), 161-200.
‘Roxana’s Dance: The Persuasive Footwork of Defoe’s Fortunate Mistress’, in The 18th-Century Novel, vol. 8 (October 2011), 61-118.
‘An annotated livret of Lully’s Roland as a source for seventeenth-century declamation’, in Cambridge Opera Journal, Volume 25, Issue 1 (March 2013), 1-36.
‘Gustav Leonhardt, the Naarden Circle and Early Music’s Reformation’ in Early Music, Vol. 42, Issue 1 (February 2014), 3-12.
‘ ‘Mechanical rules’ versus ‘abnormis gratia’: revaluing Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia as a source for historical acting techniques’, in Theatrical heritage: challenges and opportunities, eds. Bruno Forment and Christel Stalpaert (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015), 41-57.
'Les enfans du Sr. Frederic: the identities and performances of a theatre family active in the United Provinces, 1758-1763’, with Anna de Haas, in European Drama and Performance Studies, (2015-1, no. 4, special issue entitled ‘Dance and the Dutch Republic’, guest eds. Michiel Schuijer and Jed Wentz), 95-144.
'On the Protestant Roots of Gustav Leonhardt's Performance Style', in Bach Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Vol. 48, No. 2 and Vol. 49, No. 1, 2018, 48-92.
Jed Wentz, 'I Was Just Saying The Lines', forthcoming in 'Historical Acting Techniques and the 21-Century Body', ed. Jed Wentz, European Drama and Performance Studies Journal, 2022-2, no. 19.
Jed Wentz and The Dutch Historical Acting Collective, 'A Roundtable on Embodiment in Research', forthcoming in 'Historical Acting Techniques and the 21-Century Body', ed. Jed Wentz, European Drama and Performance Studies Journal, 2022-2, no. 19.
Jed Wentz, 'And the wing’d muscles, into meanings fly': practice-based research into historical acting through the writings of Aaron Hill', forthcoming in 'Historical Acting Techniques and the 21-Century Body', ed. Jed Wentz, European Drama and Performance Studies Journal, 2022-2, no. 19.
Xavier Vandamme and Jed Wentz, 'Seven Propositions Towards the Establishment of a New Kind of Theatre Festival', forthcoming in 'Historical Acting Techniques and the 21-Century Body', ed. Jed Wentz, European Drama and Performance Studies Journal, 2022-2, no. 19.
Jed Wentz, 'Renewing the Performance of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Musical Repertoire through an Embodiment of Historical Acting Techniques', forthcoming in ed. Mimi Mitchell, Early Music in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press).
Conferences Organized (papers presented):
2009 The Dutchman and the Honeybees: An International Baroque Dance Symposium (Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Paper given (together with Jennifer Thorp): ‘Eyes, Feet, Ears and Hearts: Baroque Dance in Experimental Times’.
2010 Gesture on the French Stage, 1675-1800 (Utrecht Early Music Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands). Paper given: ‘Affect, Gesture and Rubato at the Opéra’.
2012 ‘Much of what we do is pure hyposthesis’: Gustav Leonhardt and his Early Music (Utrecht Early Music Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands). Paper given: ‘Gustav Maria Leonhardt in Basel: portrait of a young harpsichordist’.
2012 ‘Much of what we do is pure hyposthesis’: Gustav Leonhardt and his EarlyMusic (Utrecht Early Music Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands). Paper given: ‘Fairy tales by candlelight: images of Leonhardt from the Dutch television archive’.
2014 Curriculum matters: teaching Early Music in the 21st century (Utrecht Early Music Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands). Paper presented (together with João Luís Paixão): ‘Learning from Lully’.
2015 The past is a foreign country (co-organized with Barbara Titus. Utrecht Early Music Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands). Paper given: ‘Faith, Volk and ‘Bach-trunkenen Theologen’ : ideologies of performance in the Bach Jahrbuch, 1900-1910.’
2016 Reconstructing a usable past (co-organized with Avery Gosfield. Utrecht Early Music Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands).
Conferences Attended (papers presented):
1994 Conference: Le Mouvement en Musique à l’Époque Baroque (Metz, France). Paper: ‘Les Indications de Tempo de J. S. Bach à Lumière de Die Kunst des reinen Satzes de J. Ph. Kirnberger’.
2006 Conference: Music and Gesture II (Manchester, UK). Paper given:
‘Rhythmic Freedom at the Opéra: evidence from revival scores’.
2008 Conference of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (Huntington Library, Pasadena, California, USA). Paper given: ‘Roxana’s Dance: The Persuasive Footwork of Defoe’s Fortunate Mistress’. Awarded the Irene Alm Memorial Prize.
2008 Conference: Dance, Timing and Musical Gesture (Edinburgh, UK). Paper given (together with Jennifer Thorp): ‘Eyes, Feet, Ears and Hearts: Baroque Dance in Experimental Times’.
2009 Conference of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, UK). Paper given: ‘Roxana’s Dance:The Persuasive Footwork of Defoe’s Fortunate Mistress’.
2009 International Conference on Music and Emotion (Durham, UK). Paper given: ‘Grimarest’s Prescription’.
2010 Conference of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, UK). Workshop given: ‘ ‘And Leaves the World to Darkness and to Me’. A workshop on Gilbert Austin’s notational system for gesture’.
2010 Conference: Dance and Image (New College, Oxford, UK)‘Lifting the Mask of Mlle. Horibilicribrifaxin’.
2011 Conference: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (Vancouver, Canada). Roundtable ‘Reading /Reciting Eighteenth-Century English’. Performance: ‘ ‘Brutus’ Speech from Julius Caesar as notated by Gilbert Austin’.
2011 César Seminar: Theatre as Visual Spectacle (Taylor Institution Library, Oxford, UK). Paper: ‘Reconstructing Gesture for French Baroque Opera: some pitfalls and points of departure’.
2011 Conference: Dance and the Novel (New College, Oxford, UK). Paper/workshop: ‘An Impostor Princess and a Royal Fool: reconstructing Defoe’s mismatched masquerade courante’.
2011 Colloque et ateliers: Le Tableau et la Scène: Peinture et mise en scène du répertoire héroique dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Nantes: Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes, France). Workshop: ‘Une scène à partir de l’apport de l’œuvre des Coypel: le monologue d’Armide’.
2011 Workshop (University of Winchester, UK). Lecture/demonstration: ‘Meaning in Movement: historical acting as textual analysis’.
2011 Workshop (Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Linz, Austria). Lecture/demonstration: ‘French Rhetorical Sources and the Expression of the Passions’.
2011 Conference on historical staging (Drottningholm, Sweden). Causerie to initiate roundtable discussion: ‘The Place of Gesture in Contemporary Opera Productions: some pros and cons’.
2012 Conference of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, UK). Paper given: ‘ Joshua Steele’s Prosodia Rationalis’.
2012 15th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music (Southampton, UK). Paper given: ‘An annotated livret of Lully’s Roland as a source for 17th-century declamation’.
2012 Conference of the American Musicological Society (New Orleans, USA). Paper given: ‘David Garrick’s declamation notated’.
2013 Conference: Revaluing theatrical heritage (Kortrijk, Belgium). Paper given ‘With waving arms and wavering voice: three theatrical reconstructions from Austin notation: 1806-1875’.
2013 Conference Training ‘Early’ Musicians in the age of historical recordings (Tel Aviv, Israel). Paper given: ‘Traces of 18th-century actio in historical recordings: a proposed praxis for today’s conservatory classroom’.
2013 Lecture (Oxford, UK). Paper given (with Joao Paixão, by invitation): ‘Il se tuë: reconstructing the royal suicide scene from Battistin’s Polidore’.
2014 Conference of the VvM [Society for Music Theory] and KVNM [Royal Society for Dutch Music History] (Den Haag, The Netherlands). Paper given: ‘Lallemant, Rameau and the harmony of the passions’.
2014 Symposium of the 29th International Handel-Academy Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe, Germany). Paper given: ‘Rhetorical actio’.
2014 Conference Roots of revival (Horniman Museum, London, UK). Paper given: ‘Dutch music criticism and the formation of an Early Music aesthetic in The Netherlands, 1916-1921’.
2014 Conference American Society for Eigtheenth-Century Studies (Williamsburg, USA). Lecture demonstration: ‘Performing Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia’.
2014 Conference Film and the other arts, 1894-1945 (University of Oxford, UK). Paper given: ‘Traces of 17th-century actio in films by Paul Wegener and F. W. Murnau’.
2014 Séminaire international déclamation, chant et danse en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Tours, France). Paper given (together with Joao Paixão): ‘A reconstruction of spoken declamation based on Lully’s Roland’.
2014 Symposium of the 31st International Handel-Academy Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe, Germany). Paper given: ‘The subjective in authenticity: a performer's perspective’.
2016 Conference of the Society for Theatre Research. Theatre in the Regency Era, Plays, Performance, Practice: 1795-1843 (Downing College, Cambridge, UK). Keynote demonstration, together with João Luís Paixão: ‘Reconstructing late 18th-century English acting’.
Guest teaching, masterclasses and lectures:
Case Western Reserve University
Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris
Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et Danse de Paris
Hochscule für Künste Bremen
Royal Academy of Music, London
Royal College of Music, London
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
The Coburn School of Performing ARts
The Curtis Institute of Music
The Juilliard School
The Longy School of Music
The Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Universität Mozarteum Salzburg
University of California, Los Angeles
University of North Texas, Denton
University of Winchester, UK
Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz
Classes Taught at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam:
Bachelor Level:
‘Historical Treatises of the Long 18th Century’ (since 2008)
‘Early Music in the 20th Century: Portrait of a Revival’ (since 2006)
‘An Introduction to Baroque Dance & Gesture’ (since 2008)
‘Rhetoric’ (since 2008)
Master Level:
‘The Failure to Establish an English-Language Opera in London’ (2001-2)
‘Baroque dance and its notation’ (2005-2011)
Class Taught at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag:
‘Rhetoric’ (since 2013)
Historical Acting Techniques for Musicians: Imagination, Memory, Embodiment (since 2022)
Seminars given at The Juilliard School:
‘Mattheson, rhetoric and musical expression’ (2013)
‘Hanslick’s tönend bewegte Formen and the Early Music aesthetic of The Netherlands’ (2014)
‘Actio, actio, actio: Rhetoric, gesture and instrumental performance practice’ (2016)
Silent Film Scores (quodlibet piano scores):
Paul Wegener, Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920)
F. W. Murnau, Der brennende Acker (1922)
F. W. Murnau, Nosferatu (1922)
F. W. Murnau Der letzte Mann (1924)
Manfred Noa, Der Raub der Helena (1924)
Victor Seastrom: He who gets slapped (1924)
F. W. Murnau: Herr Tartüff (1925)
F. W. Murnau, Faust (1926)
Jean Epstein: La glace à trois faces (1927)
A. Asquith, A cottage on Dartmoor (1929)
G. W. Pabst, Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)