Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures

Karolina Anna Tatar is a PhD student at University of Turin, Italy with a joint research project of Department of Historical Studies and Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures coordinated by prof. Silvia Pireddu. She bears two Bachelor’s Degrees, in Conducting Musical Ensembles from “Fryderyk Chopin” University of Music in Warsaw (Bachelor’s thesis “A Selection of Leonard Bernstein's Religious Choral Works”) and in English Studies from University of Warsaw (Bachelor’s thesis “The Threat of Indoctrination by the Anglo-Saxon Culture in English Language Teaching”) and four Master’s Degrees, in Choir Conducting from “Fryderyk Chopin” University of Music in Warsaw (Master’s thesis “Working With Italian Amateur Vocal Groups - Selected Examples”), in Translation from University of Turin (Master’s thesis “(Simultaneous Interpretation at the European Parliament: the hypothetical periods challenge”), in Conference Interpreting from tuttoEUROPA Training Agency in Turin (final paper “The Characteristics of Indian English in the Speech of Narendra Modi”) and in Teaching Italian as Second Language from University of Turin (final paper “Spoken Italian of Polish Mother Tongue Learners: Examples of John Paul II and Zbigniew Boniek”). In 2023, Karolina won the “Translation, multilingualism and intercomprehension” research grant at University of Turin coordinated by prof. Silvia Verdiani.

The New Presentation of Musical Heritage Through Multimodality and Multilingualism: the case of Gallery of Musical Instruments of Conservatory of Turin “Giuseppe Verdi”
The main idea of the new presentation of the Gallery consists in developing plural narrations of the selected instruments of the Collection. Those narrations should include musical, musicological and historical perspectives and aspects related to the single instruments for didactic scopes by adopting multimodal and multilingual solutions.
The technological multimodal solutions are to be applied so as to, eventually, listen to the instruments and see them play, as well as present their stories and the ones of the people who created them and were connected to them, that is, mainly, instrument makers, composers and musicians. The essential element is the enrichment of the narrations with historical representations of the selected instruments in visual arts. Last but not least, the technology is to be used to offer the possibility for the future visitors to make music themselves drawing inspiration from the selected instruments.
For the multilingual solutions, we intend the use of as many languages as possible for the realisation of the new presentation of the Gallery. By that is meant to represent the Gallery in the major European languages which are pertinent to the objects of the Collection: English, French, Italian and German. What is more, the linguistic aspect is reflected on also as far as the nature of the language is concerned. For that we mean its terminology, complexity and accessibility. It must be stated that by addressing terminology we refer to the last of the relative concepts provided by Cabré (1999), that is “[t]he set of terms of a particular special subject.” Examples for the language proper for Music Education are to be drawn from the most popular related publications, for example of Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
The instruments selected for the narration are not necessarily to be the highlights of the Collection but those which can be named the most precious representatives of the rich tradition of the Turin instrument-making. An example is the one-of-a-kind spinet of Abel Adam or Carlo Palanca’s model-Baroque flute.
What is more, the ideas conceived at the moment of creation of the Gallery, such as the preparation of a scientific catalogue and three-dimensional scanning of chosen instruments are going to be used for the new presentation of the Collection according to the most innovative and open standards (regarding the photographing, the description and the accessibility of the Collection).
Finally, the information to complete the single narrations developed as well as the solutions to be introduced in the new presentation of the Gallery are to be found and inspired of after having visited the world’s most important Music Museums. The principle of the new proposal of the Collection being to privilege a collective experience of a visit versus an individual one.