The Orpheus Institute has been providing postgraduate education for musicians since 1996 and introduced the first doctoral programme for music practitioners in Flanders (2004). Acting as an
umbrella institution for Flanders, it is co-governed by the music and dramatic arts departments of all four Flemish Colleges, which are strongly involved in its operation.
Throughout the Institutes various activities (workshops, master classes, seminars, interviews, and associated events) there is a clear focus on the development of a new research discipline in
the arts: one that addresses questions and topics that are at the heart of musical practice, building on the unique expertise and perspectives of musicians and constantly dialoguing with more
established research disciplines.
Within this context, the Orpheus Institute launched an international Research Centre in 2007 that acts as a stable constituent within an ever growing field of enquiry. The Orpheus Research
Centre in Music [ORCiM] is a place where musical artist can fruitfully conduct individual and collaborative research on issues that are of concern to all involved in artistic practice. The
development of a discipline-specific discourse in the field of artistic research in music is the core mission of ORCiM.
This Subseries of The Collected Writings of the Orpheus Institute, will explicitly 'zoom in' on studies that take artistic practice as their point of departure and deal with questions and
challenges that arise from that practice. It is this kind of research, in all its variety, which the Orpheus Researhc Centre in Music promotes and which the Subseries is designed to present.
The contributions within the Subseries extend the possibilities and understanding of musical practice and act as a springboard for future research in this young but fascinating area.
The emergent field of artistic research remains controversial, and is accepted with varying degrees of enthusiasm in academic institutions. The challenges and opportunities presented by this
discipline may be better understood by re-emphasising the centrality of the artist through a fresh paradigm-an 'artistic turn'. The aim is to create a field of meaning that may illuminate the
most promising, though correspondingly problematic, aspects of artistic research; the essential ineffability of artistic creativity, and the consequent insufficiency of verbal and written
accounts. The discourse articulated charts a constellation of ideas that outlines the new disciplines and points to its manifold and open-ended possibilities.
