WSO music director conducts high-tech research for UWindsor grad student

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Windsor Symphony Orchestra music director Robert Franz is one of seven maestros whose posture and arm motions were tested as part of a special research project.

“There’s no research that looks specifically at conductors to identify what a bad or dangerous posture is,” says Jessica Flammia, a human kinetics graduate student who chose this topic for her master’s thesis.

“It's an opportunity for me to combine both my passion for music and everything that I've learned throughout my many years of education into a one kind of final project.”

Flammia used a special stop motion video system to detect and track Franz’s movements while he went through the motions of directing the symphony through Nimrod from Enigma Variations.

“It was super cool just to have all those nodes all over my body,” Franz said Wednesday. “I had like the Olivia Newton John thing (headband) on my head and the whole nine yards. I was going to town (on the music).”

The results?

“Maestro Franz spends more than three-quarters of his time in positions that in industry would be considered bad or dangerous,” said Flammia.

According to Flammia, there is a lot of industrial research into the impact of repetitive motions and how to manage them to avoid injury.

“With automotive research, they've labeled positions as bad or potentially injury causing,” said Flammia who noted positions that are then restricted, reduced or eliminated by employers.

The one good thing about conducting is that Franz’s motions are repetitive but only over an hour or two and don’t include any weight.

But the impact can still be significant nonetheless.

Franz tells CTV News when he started his career it didn’t take long for the tension to build up in his shoulder.

“My right arm seized up and I had a problem that I actually couldn’t conduct,” said Franz.

For the next 15 years, Franz worked with a movement teacher to find the best movements to allow him to be healthy but also to do his job.

Still, he jumped at the chance to be a part of Flammia’s research project.

“I've now been doing this for 30 years and anytime I can just get out of myself and re-examine it? I'm in! I want to try. I want to see what else there is to find,” said Franz.

Although she’s still pouring over all the data, Flammia is hopeful her thesis project will be used for future conductors or music teachers to help them protect their bodies from the rigours of the job.

“The sheer amount of time that they spent in postures that would be labeled as bad or something that would require fixing in an industry, that was surprising as well,” said Flammia.