Past research events
A recent history of our research and visiting academics
Our research events reveal the depth and breadth of our expertise and interests at the Conservatorium. We invite you to peruse our previous offerings (many have videos) and join us for current events.
Special research events
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music hosts occasional workshops, conferences and seminars.
Music in culturally diverse societies
Organised by Dr Catherine Ingram and Professor Linda Barwick.
3 - 4 April 2018
Supported by funding from the Royal Society UK, our Research Unit for Musical Diversity and the University of Sydney’s Southeast Asia Studies Centre.
Workshop - Grassroots Musical Resilience in Southwestern China
Co-organised by Dr Catherine Ingram (Sydney Conservatorium of Music) and Associate Professor KAO Ya-ning (National Chengchi University).
Tuesday 7 August 2018
Supported by funding from the China Studies Centre, the University of Sydney and the Australian Research Council. We are also grateful for support from our visitors’ institutions: Guangxi University for Nationalities, Guangxi Arts Institute and the National Chengchi University.
Symposium: Discovering Don Giovanni
25 September 2018
Correct, but not beautiful performance
Organised by Professor Neal Peres Da Costa, Mr Daniel Yeadon and Professor Clive Brown.
27 - 30 September 2018
Meter Symposium 3
Organised by Andrea Calilhanna (Master of Music (Musicology) student), Dr Alan Maddox and Dr Michael Webb.
24 - 25 November 2018
Supported by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Musicology and Music Education Divisions, Western Sydney University, MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development (co-presenter of the Keynote), Musicology Society of Australia, Sydney Chapter, Music Teachers’ Association of NSW and the Ian Potter Foundation.
Indigenous Music and Dance
13 - 14 December 2018
Indigenous Music and Dance is hosted by researchers working on a new project documenting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music and dance in Australia’s ‘long’ assimilation era (1935-75), which aims to excavate archival records and combine them with oral histories, connecting historical objects with living people, and performative responses to the historical records. The symposium will showcase performance-centred frameworks for understanding cultural agency in Indigenous histories.
Out of the Shadows: Rediscovering Jewish Music and Theatre
Sponsored by Performing the Jewish Archive, a British Arts and Humanities Research Council project
5 to 13 August 2017
Read the reviews:
- Sydney Morning Herald, 2 August
- The Conversation, 31 July
- Australian Jewish News, 25 July
- Limelight Review, Seven Deadly Sins, 6 August
- Limelight Review, Prince Bettliegend, 11 August
Best Practice in Artistic Research in Music Symposium
Convened by Professor Neal Peres Da Costa, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
27 to 29 September 2017
Meter Symposium 2
Keynote speaker: Professor Richard Cohn, Yale University
24 to 25 February 2017
Presence through sound: A concert of contemporary music from or related to East Asia
Organised by Dr Catherine Ingram, Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Professor Keith Howard, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK
29 to 30 March 2016
Meter Symposium
Keynote speaker: Professor Dean Rickles
24 June 2016
Japanese Noh Workshop
Professor Richard Emmert, Guest Instructor
27 to 28 February 2015
Image-Music-Text Interdisciplinary Symposium
20 March 2015
Noh Performance
Collaboration between author Allan Marett, composer Richard Emmert and master actor-teacher of the Kita School of Japanese classical Noh theatre, Akira Matsui,
30 September to 1 October 2015
Musicological Society of Australia National Conference
1 to 4 October 2015
Dialogues on Australia-China Music Research and Education
6 October 2015
Musical manuscripts and their legacies: A symposium in honour of Jane Morlet Hardie
Convened by Alan Maddox and Kathleen Nelson, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
14 June 2013
Raymond Hanson Centenary Symposium and Concert
Convened by Assoicate Professor Kathleen Nelson and Dr Joanna Drimatis, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
23 November 2013
Alfred Hook lecture series
The Alfred Hook lecture series is made possible through a generous bequest from Doreen Robson.
Archival recordings of music in Bali
Presented by Dr Edward Herbst
3 April 2018
Claire Chase, Density 2036
Presented by Claire Chase
21 May 2018
Life in music – Field notes from a practitioner
Presented by Genevieve Lacey
(Part of the Best Practice in Artistic Research in Music Symposium)
29 September 2017
Testimony, Facticity, and Musical Truth-Telling
Presented by Brigid Cohen
10 August 2017
How Haydn clinches closure
Presented by Dean Sutcliffe
6 October 2016
New ways for old ceremonies: An archival research project
Presented by Payi Linda Ford
11 May 2016
Cognitive research and South Asian music
Presented by Richard Widdess
13 April 2015
The deep history and near future of music
Presented by Gary Tomlinson
3 October 2015
A Platonic model of funky rhythms, or how to get that swing
Presented by Richard Cohn
22 March 2013
Works of music and their interpretation in performance
Presented by Professor Paul Thom
17 May 2013
Performing Monteverdi: Some problems (and a few solutions)
Presented by Professor Tim Carter
7 June 2013
Dancing to the devil’s tune: Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz and the power of virtuosity
Presented by Dr David Larkin
2 August 2013
The Iconic Symphony: Conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Wagner’s Way
Presented by Dr Raymond Holden
9 August 2013
Bards of Empire: Kipling and Grainger, Kipling’s life and how works are reflected in the music of Grainger and others
Presented by Associate Professor Michael Halliwell and David Miller AM
30 August 2013
We are all musical: A celebration of human musicality and its importance for health and wellbeing
Professor Raymond MacDonald
27 September 2013
Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) 200 years on
Presented by Associate Professor Stephanie McCallum
25 October 2013
The mysteries of Gregorian Chant revealed
Presented by Dr Neil McEwan AM FRSCM
20 April 2012
Jazz or Post-Jazz? The ‘J’ word in the 21st century
Presented by Paul Grabowsky
25 May 2012
Lab coats, sound aquarelles and war loot: The history of early electronic music and its links to today’s electronic music scenes
Presented by Lieven Bertels
31 August 2012
The sounding of Australian history: ‘Daisy Bates at Ooldea’, a new opera by Bob Reece and Anne Boyd
Presented by Bob Reece and Anne Boyd
21 September 2012
Structure in music: What’s the law got to do with it?
Presented by George Palmer AM QC
26 October 2012
On inspiration
Elena Kats-Chernin
4 March 2011
From Melba to Sutherland: Australian Singers on Record
Presented by Roger Neill
8 April 2011
My history of jazz in Australia
Presented by Bob Barnard
19 August 2011
Ten years in: a European perspective on 21st century composing
Presented by Richard Toop
26 March 2010
About Music Education public lecture series
Each semester we invite leading practitioners and researchers to open discussion with a 20-minute TED-style presentation on a topic of their choice followed by a facilitated Q&A.
The Maker Movement in Music Education
28 September
Going beyond the boundaries in Music Education
8 October 2018
Presented by Kathryn Marsh
The Australian Music Centre - Echo
24 October 2018
Professional Issues in Music Education
2 November 2018
Adaption of the Kodály Philosophy in an Australian Secondary Context: A Taster of the Rejuvinated Music Program in the Conservatorium High School
6 November 2018
Presented by Réka Csernyik
Technology in Music Education: Presentation of Learning
23 November 2018
Technology in Music Education Public Presentation of Learning
24 November 2017
About Music Education: Sounds of hope: Musical outreach and wellbeing for young refugees and migrants
23 October 2017
EdTech x About Music Education: When copyright law prevents best practice
19 October 2017
About Music Education: Building Bridges: Research and Practice in Aural Skills Training
Presented by Gary Karpinski
10 August 2017
About Music Education: Your aural is better than you think
Presented by Samantha Coates
5 June 2017
About Music Education: Teach Meet
22 May 2017
About Music Education: Crosstown Traffic
Presented by Peter Mahony
1 May 2017
About Music Education: Most Likely to Succeed (documentary)
10 April 2017
About Music Education: A Conservatorium High School for the 21st Century
Presented by Ian Barker, Deputy Principal, Conservatorium High School
20 March 2017
About Music Education: ePortfolios in Australian Universities (Book launch)
Presented by Jennifer Rowley
13 March 2017
Teach Meet 2
19 September 2016
Don’t shoot the syllabus
Presented by Brad Fuller
12 September 2016
Liveschool: Theory through practice
Presented by Adam Maggs
5 September 2016
‘Music Concepts’ Crisis! The increasing invisibility of musical knowledge in the classroom
Presented by Michael Webb and Christine Carroll
8 August 2016
Why piano lessons are so this century (and ... not)
Presented by Elissa Milne
23 May 2016
Why you should be teaching hip-hop
Presented by Luka Lesson and Jordan Thomas Mitchell
9 May 2016
Teach Meet
11 April 2016
- The Online Music Portfolio
Presented by Andrew Mifsud (Barker College)
Watch this lecture on Youtube - Psychology and Lyric Writing
Presented by Keppie Coutts (AIM/Berklee)
Watch this lecture on Youtube - Using Composition and Improvisation as An Entry Point to Listening Activities
Presented by Debra Batley
Watch this lecture on Youtube - How to Make Learning Piano Fun from a Young Age
Presented by Paul Myatt (Forte School of Music)
Watch this lecture on Youtube
- The convergence of Music Education and Music Therapy in my Classroom
Presented by Dr Dianne Langan (Wenona)
Watch this lecture on Youtube
Mentoring future teachers
Presented by Rebecca Grubb and Annabelle Osborne
21 March 2016
Music and 21st century education
Presented by James Humberstone
14 March 2016
Musicology Colloquium series
Every fortnight during semester, our musicologists and research visitors present a lecture on a variety of topics.
The artist vs the audience: musical politics in mid-nineteenth century Germany
David Larkin (Musicology division)
8 August 2018
This colloquium explores this contested terrain in the aftermath of the 1848-9 revolutions, situating artistic innovation within broader philosophical discourse about progress, and interrogating how both sides understood the relationship between composers and the audiences of the day.
Siamese songs in old Bangkok: The birth of the Thai recording industry 1903-1911
Presented by James Mitchell
22 August 2018
Today the Thai popular music industry dominates mainland Southeast Asia through two of Asia’s largest entertainment companies GMM Grammy and RSiam. The roots of this profitable recording industry lie in a brief period, from 1903 to 1911, when the Gramophone Company, Odeon, Pathé, Beka and a host of smaller companies engaged in a race to record the world’s music so asto gain market share (Gronow 1981: 56-65). During the final ‘golden’ decade of King Chulalongkorn’s long reign, the new gramophone technology functioned as an influential site of interaction between Siamese royalty and court musicians, Chinese and Malay compradors and European recording experts. The story of this interaction demonstrates the effects of Siam’s semi-colonisation by the British and Chinese on the development of Thai music and the broader issue of how discography and discology can be usefully incorporated into the field of ethnomusicology. Merriam’s criticism of “armchair analysis” (1964: 39) is contrasted with a discussion of National Taiwan University’s Recording in East and Southeast Asia (RIESA) Project.
Attempting the impossible: worldview change in music teachers
Presented by James Humberstone (Music Education)
5 September 2018
The University of Sydney launched its first Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) in April 2016. Titled “The Place of Music in 21st Century Education”, it presented seemingly contradictory contemporary research and practice from the field as a series of provocations for critical thinking. It did not advocate for any one position, instead hoping to prompt worldview change toward a more pluralist, inclusive music education. Participants were prompted to think carefully not just to gain marks, but because their thoughts had to be blogged publicly. Two years later, over 3,000 musicians, teachers, artists, academics, and interested public internationally have been active learners in the course. They have also agreed for any data they generate to be used for research purposes. In this paper, having formed a research team with Dr Danny Liu and Catherine Zhao, James will consider what our first analyses of hundreds of thousands of clicks, polls, blog posts, marks, and written feedback might be telling us about our participants, whether we see evidence of changing worldviews, and think about what this might mean for music education
A portrait of a Roman singer
Presented by Jessica Sun
19 September 2018
In 1641, the painter Andrea Sacchi immortalized the Roman castrato Marc'Antonio Pasqualini in an allegorical portrait, in which the singer appears alongside the mythological musicians Apollo and Marsyas. While the painting celebrates the sitter's musical triumph, the inclusion of the satyr Marsyas, bound and awaiting punishment, is a sinister and enigmatic detail. Is it an allusion to Pasqualini's own status as a mutilated singer? Does it offer a warning against Dionysian passions, in favour of Apollonian control? This paper takes Marc'Antonio Pasqualini Crowned by Apollo as a starting point and case-study for how the multifaceted myth of Apollo and Marsyas functions in seventeenth-century painting and allegory. It will compare Pasqualini's portrait with works by Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian and Caravaggio, and examine the symbolically versatile figure of Marsyas as he appears in Italian Humanist discourse, treatises on the visual arts, and anatomical textbooks.
“…or not to be” : Hamlet as opera
Presented by Michael Halliwell (Vocal and Opera Studies)
3 October 2018
Shakespeare’s Hamlet has intrigued, exasperated, and mostly defied opera composers for over 400 years. Only one operatic version of the play, by Ambroise Thomas (1868), has until now enjoyed a tenuous place in the repertoire. Yet there have been over forty documented versions. Franco Faccio’s Hamlet (1865), with libretto by Arigo Boito, was successful when premiered, then dropped completely out of the repertoire. A Bregenz Festival revival in 2016 revealed a taut, and engrossing adaptation and a masterful condensation of the play. Also in the Shakespeare year of 2016, an innovative interpretation by German composer, Anno Schreier, who reimagined the play as a claustrophobic family drama, was premiered at the Theater an der Wien. A year later Brett Dean’s Hamlet appeared at Glyndebourne to universal acclaim, and was repeated in Adelaide in March 2018, and seems destined to be added to the current repertoire with performances at the New York Metropolitan Opera and in Europe lined up. The focus of this presentation is on Dean’s opera, but contrasts it with the Faccio and Schreier operas, investigating what elements in the play are amenable to operatic adaptation.
Everything’s Heavy Underground!
The role of enforced creative boundaries in the songs of Ben Folds Five
Presnted by Dr Jade O'Regan
31 Octover 2018
The nature of musical creativity is at times difficult to define. In popular music, many song writing books and tutorials encourage musicians to write “without boundaries” and to “break through” the blocks or rules they unconsciously have when creating new music. On the other hand, having no rules at all for creativity can lead to an overwhelming array of musical choices, resulting in a creative paralysis. This paper aims to look at how enforced creative rules can impact the way new songs are written, recorded and performed live. These concepts will be analysed through the music of 1990s indie pop band Ben Folds Five, and Ben Folds’ subsequent solo work after the break-up of the group.
The Art of Fugue in the context of Bach’s final decade
Presented by Associate Professor Daniel Herscovitch, The University of Sydney
15 March 2017
The Art of Fugue marks the conclusion of Bach’s compositional career. This presentation discusses the work in its relationship to the other five major compositions of his final decade.
Music in the Life and Work of Patrick White
Presented by Vincent Plush, The University of Adelaide
29 March 2017
There is music on almost every page of Australian novelist Patrick White's work, and music is a structural foundation for White’s novels and characters. This lecture explores its influence.
St Augustine High School and the spectre of teen activism in New Orleans 1961-63
Presented by Dr Christopher Coady, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
12 April 2017
How political action undertaken by teenagers a St Augustine High School in New Orleans resonated with and inspired community engagement in parallel political pursuits.
Poetic and empirical theories of musical meter: Cognitive dissonance in the historical archive, the laboratory, and the modern conservatory classroom
Presented by Professor Richard Cohn, Yale University
26 April 2017
Is the binary strong/weak classification of beats absolute? Tracking tensions from 18th-century poetics and theorists in Germany and Scotland to present day concepts.
Colourful dreams: Arvo Pärt’s Soviet film music
Presented by Chris May, University of Oxford
10 May 2017
In the 20 years before leaving the Soviet Union in 1980, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt composed some 40 scores for Soviet film – a substantial yet under-critiqued body of work.
Singing ‘fantastically in Italian’: Farinelli, Porpora, and the third style of composition
Presented by Michael Burden, University of Oxford
24 May 2017
Singers Felice Salimbeni and Gaetano Caffarello were taught by composer Nicola Porpora in a manner some commentators called a 'third style'. What is it? Real or myth?
Tracing the origins of an Aboriginal travelling song: the Wanji-wanji of the Western Desert
Presented by Dr Myfany Turpin, University of Sydney
2 August 2017
Like folk songs, 'travelling' songs toured across political, ethnic and language divides, gaining popularity rapidly. This seminar considers examples, with musical and linguistic evidence.
Melanesians and music on the move: South Sea Island shipboard and plantation performance in Queensland, 1860s-1906
Presented by Dr Michael Webb, University of Sydney
23 August 2017
Casting new light on the ways South Sea Islanders acted out agency and asserted new identities as they became tangled up in the dynamics of colonial encounters.
Analyzing difference: Compositions, performing traditions, and individual artistic signatures
Presented by Professor Dorottya Fabian, University of NSW
6 September 2017
Taking Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solos Violin, this paper argues enlisting Deleuzian concepts in analysing performances of the same piece is useful for performance practice.
War divides, music connects: Music as a tool for empathy
Presented by Laura Hassler, Founder and Director, Musicians without Borders
13 September 2017
As musicians and music professionals, which core qualities of the artform we love can we access to help save lives, bridge divides, and heal the wounds of war and injustice?
Varietas delectat: Alternative readings in the sources, editions and performances of J S Bach’s Solo Cello Suites
Presented by Dr Zoltán Szabó, The University of Sydney
4 October 2017
Based on Bach's Suites, exploring how music can undergo great alterations during the process of composition, copying, editing, publishing and, finally, performance.
Music and intellectual history: the case of J S Bach’s St Matthew Passion
Presented by Dr Alan Maddox, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
18 October
How St Matthew Passion was conceived in a liturgical context, how its meaning changed in concert performance in 19th century Berlin and colonial Sydney, and other reimaginings.
Two routes to epiphany in music, song and literature
Presented by Professor Nigel Fabb, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
9 March 2016
Distinguishing between exogenous and endogenous epiphany (a subjectively significant experience triggered by an external source) and tracing their connection in Aboriginal songs.
Secrets of the grave: New light on Brahms’s Funeral works
Presented by Martin Ennis, University of Cambridge
23 March 2016
Looking afresh at conductor Siegfried Ochs’s comments on the Requiem and its apparent refusal to offer a Christian message and proposing a new perspective on the work's origins.
The battle for hearts and minds: Liszt and the Viennese critics, March 1858
Dr David Larkin, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
27 April 2016
Focusing on two concerts of Liszt's music which Liszt conducted in the Austrian capital in 1858, as which there is rich extant documentation in the press and in his correspondence.
Reconsidering ethnographic comparison in music research
Dr Catherine Ingram, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
25 May 2016
Insights into the music-making of selected cultural minorities in Australia and China and exploring how new musical ethnographic comparative approaches may be developed.
Analysing and composing with the performing body
Assistant Professor Jocelyn Ho, UCLA
27 July 2016
Focusing on live performance, with the performer’s body central to investigating analysis and composition as reciprocal processes, and how bodily gestures are key to creating music.
Keeping an eye on summer: A (short) narrative of the Beach Boys’ 1960s music through popular music analysis and visual musicology
Dr Jadey O’Regan, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
10 August 2016
Exploring song structures, instrumentation, chord progressions and lyrics to show how the Beach Boys’ music moved through three distinct periods of development.
Film as opera: A case study
Presented by Associate Professor Michael Halliwell, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
24 August 2016
From David Lean’s 1945 film Brief Encounter and Noel Coward’s 1936 play Still Life to André Previn's 2009 opera. How Previn's adaptation drew on different elements of both source works.
Abandoned notes? Exploring the fate of a discarded Rachmaninoff piano sketch
Presented by Dr Scott Davie, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
21 September 2016
Placing the discovered piano piece within the context of Rachmaninoff’s development as a composer, from experimental modernity to stylistically unique to popular variation-style works.
Graduate Symposium: the development section
Presented by Professor Dean Sutcliffe, University of Auckland
7 October 2016
What purpose could an abdication of normal musical syntax serve? How would listeners react? Considered with reference to Brunetti, Mozart, Kraus, Pleyel, Joseph and Michael Haydn.
Out of the depths: Complexity, subjectivity and materiality in the first collection of Holocaust songs
Presented by Joseph Toltz, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
19 October 2016
Focusing on the first post-Holocaust songbook Mima’amakim, compiled by Yehuda Eismann in 1945. How does it open conversations on the place of music inside and outside testimony?
Meter Without Tactus
Presented by Richard Cohn (Musicology)
11 March 2015
This presentation critiques the view that meter has a primary pulse, or tactus and concludes by advocating for a new metric pedagogy that emphasises integration of pulses without privileging one of them.
Insights in Sound: Visually-Impaired Musicians’ Lives and Learning
Presented by David Baker (Institute of Education, University of London)
18 March
This project investigates the musical experiences of blind and partially-sighted people through life history interviews and an online survey.
“The finest and grandest work ever created by human genius”: The first Sydney performance of J.S Bach’s St Matthew Passion
Presented by Alan Maddox (Musicology)
15 April
Archival records and contemporary press reports paint a vivid picture of the first Sydney performance of J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion, in April 1880, juxtaposing its lofty cultural ambitions with a rather modest musical outcome.
Musical Melanesianism
Presented by Michael Webb (Music Education) and Camellia Webb-Gannon (Justice Research Group, University of Western Sydney)
29 April
This presentation discusses a corpus of popular songs and accompanying videos produced over the last decade that promote Melanesian regional identity.
Into the diaspora. The source, the scholars and the stacks in the digital age: an Early Modern Spanish Jeronymite Processional, Sydney Rare Book Additional Manuscript 380
Presented by Jane Hardie (Medieval and Early Modern Centre, University of Sydney)
20 May
Manuscript 380 is the fourteenth known manuscript of a Spanish Jeronymite Processional and it is one of a number Spanish liturgical music manuscripts in the diaspora of the Rare Book collection of the University of Sydney.
Autonomy as Commitment within the Modernist Project: E.J. Dent, Mozart and Aesthetic Democracy
Presented by Sarah Collins (UNSW)
3 June
This presentation explores the claim that modernist autonomy can be viewed in terms of political action, collective life and egalitarianism, via the work of music scholar E.J. Dent (1876-1957).
A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer – the Conservatorium and the history of educational reform
Presented by Peter McCallum (Musicology and Academic Board)
12 August
This talk arises from observations in writing The Centenary of the Con: a history of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music 1915 – 2015 (Allen and Unwin: 2015).
To Prevent the Abuse of the Open Pedal”: Meticulous Pedal Markings from Madame du Brillon to Moscheles
Presented by Erin Helyard (Australian National University)
2 September
This presentation proposes a radical re-evaluation of pedal indications in scores from the earliest markings in Madame du Brillon’s compositions to those carefully notated for two performers in duets by Moscheles.
Shotgun Weddings and Bohemian Dreams: Jazz, family values and storytelling in Australian film
Presented by Christopher Coady (Musicology)
16 September
This presentation charts the way in which the musical trope of the bluesy solo horn – established in American and Australian film noir productions of the 1970s and 1980s – was used in contrast to conjure a sense of nostalgia in Australian films produced during the early 1990s.
Music and Human Evolution: A New View
Presented by Gary Tomlinson (Yale University)
7 October
Why is Homo sapiens a musical species? What adaptive advantages did musicking afford in the course of our ancestors’ evolution? This talk describes a new model of the forces that conspired in the origin of musicking, building on evolutionary dynamics that have been recognised only in recent years.
Caught Between the Spectacular and the Vernacular: Constructing the Ideal Musical Subject in the Popular Music Museum
Presented by Charles Fairchild (Arts Music)
14 October
This presentation examine how popular music museums work primarily through their strategic deployment of the vernacular elements of popular music practice and experience as codified within a demonstratively spectacular logic of visual, aural, and material display.
Process Dilla: Engaging with Rhythmic Forms Appearing in Contemporary Hip Hop and Neo Soul
Presented by Simon Barker (Jazz)
28 October
Simon Barker offers a range of alternative parameters for rhythmic analysis of contemporary Neo Soul and Hip Hop, including the concept of non-hierarchical internal subdivision.
