Prof. Hallgjerd Aksnes, University of Oslo
Hallgjerd Aksnes, Professor at the Department of Musicology,
University of Oslo, specializes in music cognition, with a special
focus on cognitive semantics; Norwegian music history, with a
special focus on 20th century composers; and music health
research, with a special focus on Guided Imagery and Music. As a
PhD exchange student she studied with the music theorists Marion
Guck and Lawrence Zbikowski and the philosopher Mark Johnson, and
she was Visiting Researcher at the 1996 Berkeley Summer Research
Seminars led by the cognitive linguist George Lakoff. During the
period 2008-2013 Aksnes led a five year Norwegian Research Council
project titled “Music, Motion, and Emotion: Theoretical and
Psychological Implications of Musical Embodiment”.
Dr Ashok Kumar Arya, Assist. Prof. at Kumaun University,
Nainital, Uttarakhand India
Dr Ashok Kumar Arya, Assist. Prof. at the department of music at
Kumaun University, situated in Nainital, Uttarakhand, India. He
specializes in Hindustani percussion with a focus on the art of
tabla. As a member of the Department of Music Ashok Kumar has made
a significant contribution to both academia and research. With a
decade-long commitment to Kumaun University, his expertise and
dedication in the realm of Hindustani percussion makes him a
respected figure within the academic community.
Dr Rachel Becker, Assist. Prof. at Boise State University
(Idaho)
Dr. Rachel Becker is Assistant Professor of Musicology and Oboe at
Boise State University, USA. Rachel’s research focuses on issues
of genre, virtuosity, gender, popularity, and the development of
woodwind instruments. She explores social and cultural influences
on woodwind opera fantasias, including their reception history and
the emotional responses they have evoked contemporaneously and
today. Rachel remains active as a performing oboist. Her first
book,
Valuing Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera Fantasias for Woodwind
Instruments, was published by Routledge in March 2024.
Dr Jean Beers, Assoc. Prof. at Music and Arts University of
the City of Vienna
Jean Beers, was awarded a PhD from the Russell Group University
King’s College London. Both a concert pianist and composer, as
well as professor of Artistic Research, questions and removes
boundaries and binaries in her artistic, pedagogical and research
endeavors. As Head of Programme for Keyboard, Conducting and
Composition at the Music and Arts University of the City of
Vienna, Beers has spearheaded and curated concert and lectures
series, as well as publishing in academia and performing
internationally. Her book “Creating Ambiguity in Music” was
published in 2018.
Ligia Borges Silva, PhD cand. at University of Coimbra;
Luis Castro, composer, Oporto; Carlo Giovani,
graphic designer, Oporto
Lígia Borges Silva is a PhD candidate at the University of
Coimbra, in the Artistic Studies course, where she studies the
relationship between musical time and subjective time. After years
dedicated to musical performance and education, she now works as a
fulltime researcher on music and time, under a grant provided by
the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Her recent article,
published by a psychological journal, explores the influence of
tonality, tempo, and listeners’ expertise on time perception.
Luís
Castro is a composer, teacher, researcher, and
multi-instrumentalist musician, who specializes in voice and
improvisation. Having a master’s degree in music education (jazz),
he currently teaches vocal and instrumental practice in some
Portugal institutions. As a researcher, he has focused on the role
of improvisation in music learning.
Carlo Giovani is a
graphic designer, illustrator, visual artist, and book author.
Graduated from the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil, he
has constantly researched different techniques and styles,
combining them, in search of unusual and creative illustrations.
Since 2003, the artist received more than 20 relevant
international awards and nominations, and published 15 books in
different countries.
Olga Borzyszkowska, MA, currently student at Chopin
University of Music in Warsaw
Olga Borzyszkowska graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music
theory from the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk in
2021. In 2023, she received a master’s degree at the Chopin
University of Music. Olga is also a graduate of the Postgraduate
Studies “Music Manager” and a current student of baroque cello.
She teaches theoretical subjects at the Witold Lutosławski Social
Music School of the 1st and 2nd degree in Warsaw.
Dr Renate Bräuninger, Independent Scholar, Berlin
Dr. Renate Bräuninger. Her main research field is the relationship
between music and the moving image but she also touches at
questions of the archive, notation and approaches to
interpretation and meaning gaining processes. She studied dance
and performance studies as well as musicology at the Ludwigs
Maximilians Universität Munich (M.A.), the New York University,
Dance Theatre Workshop, New York and Middlesex University London
(PhD). She has taught at numerous German and British universities.
Currently, works as free-lance lecturer and dramaturge.
Dr Paulo F. de Castro, Assoc. Prof. at University “Nova” of
Lisbon
Paulo F. de Castro studied musicology in Strasbourg, France and
the UK, and obtained his PhD at Royal Holloway, University of
London. He has written musicological essays on the history and
aesthetics of 19th- and 20th-century music in Portugal, France and
Russia. Paulo is Associate Professor and Head of the Musicology
Department at the Universidade Nova, Lisbon, and President of the
CESEM Research Centre, with special interests in theories of
musical meaning, intertextuality and the ideologies of modernism,
on which he has lectured in many European countries, Russia, North
America and Brazil. Paulo is co-editor, with Violetta Kostka and
William E. Everett, of
Intertextuality in Music: Dialogic Composition (Routledge,
2021).
Dr hab. Anna Chęćka, Assoc. Prof. at Gdańsk University;
Anna Prus, student of Medical University of Gdańsk and
Gdańsk University
Anna Chęćka is a pianist and philosopher, associate professor at
the Institute of Philosophy, University of Gdańsk, head of the
Chair of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Culture. She has published
four books in Polish:
Critical Dissonances. Evaluating Performances of Musical
Work
(2008),
Ear and Mind. Sketches of Musical Experience (2012),
A as in Apollo: A Biography of Alfred Cortot (2019),
Ear for metaphysics
(2020), the last translated into English (2021). In 2020, she
founded the interdisciplinary research team Neurobiology of Music
Study Group.
Anna Prus is a Polish student of medicine at the Medical
University of Gdansk, where she has been a student representative
for three years, and a student of Individual Interfaculty Studies
at the University of Gdansk. She is a researcher in the
Neurobiology of Music Study Group, and is interested in
neurophilosophy, bioethics and philosophy of technology.
Dr Barbara Dobretsberger, Assoc. Prof. at Mozarteum
University Salzburg
Barbara Dobretsberger, Dr. phil., studied at the Mozarteum
University Salzburg (piano pedagogy) and the Universities of
Salzburg and Vienna (German philology and musicology); in 2003
received habilitation with a thesis on Pierre Boulez. Currently
teaches as a professor of musicology, form theory and music
analysis at the Mozarteum University. Her relevant publications
include two textbooks on instrumental and vocal forms, her
research focuses on the relationship between text and music, the
meaning of music and the relevance of this outcome to the artistic
interpretation. She regularly travels to Europe, Asia and Africa
as a guest professor and lecturer.
Prof. Francesco Finocchiaro, G. Rossini Conservatoire Pesaro, habilitated Privatdozent at University of Innsbruck
Francesco Finocchiaro is a Full Professor of Music History at the
G. Rossini Conservatoire Pesaro and habilitated
Privatdozent at the University of Innsbruck. He has taught
and conducted research in Milan, Bologna, Catania, Florence,
Padua, Pescara, Vienna, Berlin, Bayreuth, and New York. His main
areas of research include metaphorology, semiotics, media theory,
and the relationship between composition, theory, and aesthetics
in twentieth-century music. He edited the Italian edition of
Arnold Schönberg's treatise
Der musikalische Gedanke (2011),
L'industria della persuasione. Musica e media nella politica
culturale del fascismo
(2022), and co-edited two other books. Among his achievements is
over 50 published essays.
Vicky Fisher, PhD cand. at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam;
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
Vicky Fisher is a dancer, teacher, participatory dance
practitioner, and embodiment researcher. Her PhD research, at the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, investigates the role of
dance-informed embodied practices in sense-making. Her research
integrates a wide range of interconnected disciplines including
dance, cognitive psychology, multimodal linguistics, education
theory and embodied cognition. Vicky has taught dance theory and
practice for over twenty-five years and currently is the
co-director of the participatory programme for Reframing HERstory
Art Foundation and teaches with the WijZijn Dance collective.
Marianthi Fotopoulou, PhD cand. at Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki
Marianthi Fotopoulou is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of
Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a
violin instructor. Her Ph.D. dissertation pertains to “The
transformation of performance of classical music: the case of
Giuseppe Verdi’s
Messa da Requiem (1874)” and is funded by the Hellenic
Foundation for Research and Innovation. Her field of research
includes Systematic and Historical Musicology, Performance studies
and Audiovisual studies. She is the author of a few articles.
Gabriele Giacosa, PhD cand. at University of Cologne
Gabriele Giacosa is a PhD candidate at the University of Cologne,
and a collegiate member of the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School. He is
working on a transdisciplinary project at the intersection of
systematic musicology, phenomenology, and cognitive semiotics,
under the supervision of Prof. Uwe Seifert (University of
Cologne), Prof. Jordan Zlatev (Lund University), and Prof. Shigeru
Taguchi (Hokkaido University). Gabriele holds a R.MA in Musicology
from Utrecht University and a BA in DAMS (Music) from the
University of Turin. His research interests span from the
philosophy of music and aesthetics to cognitive science, with a
focus on music, language and meaning.
Prof. Ryszard D. Golianek, Adam Mickiewicz University,
Poznań
Ryszard Daniel Golianek, Polish musicologist, professor at the
Institute of Musicology of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
and at the Department of Music Theory of Grażyna and Kiejstut
Bacewicz University of Music in Łódź. His main professional
interests are the history of music of the nineteenth century and
opera.
Dr Hubert Ignatowicz, Roehampton University in London
Dr Hubert Ignatowicz completed his PhD in 2023 at Roehampton
University. His thesis was
The role of music in church communities: a case of a Polish
church community in London. He is currently a lecturer at New City College in London where
he teaches English for Speakers of Other Languages. He has
regularly used music as means of cultural integration during his
sessions with immigrants. His expertise includes work with adult
migrants including students from Bangladesh, Somalia, South and
Latin America as well as Africa and Eastern Europe.
Dr Šárka Havlíčková Kysová, Assoc. Prof. at Masaryk
University in Brno
Šárka Havlíčková Kysová, Ph.D. is associate professor at the
Department of Theatre Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech
Republic. She studied Theory and History of Theatre and Czech
Language and Literature at Masaryk University. In her research and
lecturing activities, she focuses on the theory of theatre
(especially from the perspective of cognitive studies) and history
and theory of staging of opera.
Stacy Jarvis, PhD cand. at University of Birmingham
Stacy Jarvis is a professional violin performer and international
competition winner based in Manchester, United Kingdom. Presently,
she is pursuing her doctoral studies at the University of
Birmingham. Stacy's primary area of research is semiotics and
intertextuality, particularly as applied to the operatic works of
Tchaikovsky. She is currently analysing night motifs in Frederic
Chopin’s and John Field’s nocturnes. Since September 2022 Stacy is
a regular speaker at conferences; in 2023 she won the best
presentation award at the International Conference of Musicology
and Music Theory in the UK.
Caleb Labbe Phelan, PhD cand. at University of Toronto;
Dr Irida Altman, ETH Zurich
Caleb Labbe Phelan is a PhD candidate in musicology at the
University of Toronto Faculty of Music and is a Junior Fellow of
Victoria College at the University of Toronto. He also holds a
MMus in Musicology from the University of Glasgow, and is an
active pianist based in Toronto. His dissertation research
examines the intersections between Romantic and early modern
keyboard music, literature, and philosophy, with a particular
focus on virtuosity, aesthetics, and translation. His research is
supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Doctoral Fellowship.
Irida Altman is a doctoral student at ETH Zürich, researching in
the intersection of philosophy, literature, and mathematics. She
studied mathematics at MIT, Cambridge, and Warwick, and holds a
doctorate in low-dimensional topology. Her current doctoral
project, titled ’Textuality and Mathematics: A Hermeneutics’, is
developing a theory of interpretation in the poststructural
tradition based around translation between systems of
presentation. She is interested in reading mathematics through
music, and in understanding music through translation. She is also
interested in novel approaches to performativity within and beyond
conventionally performative situations.
Dr Malwina Marciniak, Academy of Music, Bydgoszcz
Malwina Marciniak – graduate of the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of
Music in Bydgoszcz, where she studied piano, music theory and
composition. Completed her post-graduate music theory curriculum
at the Academy with a doctoral dissertation on 21st-century Polish
piano concertos in the context of genre transformations and
musical narratives theory. Multiple-time winner of international
piano competitions; performed at assorted venues in Poland and
abroad. Author of a number of scholarly articles in reviewed music
periodicals; speaker at national and international scientific
conferences.
Dr Ângelo Martingo, Assoc. Prof. at University of Minho
Ângelo Martingo is Associate Professor at University of Minho
(Portugal), lecturing Sociology of Music, Cultural Policy and
Performance Studies Research. His research interests focus on the
cognition, sociology and aesthetics of music performance and
communication. He has published, as author, editor or co-editor
the following books:
Performance – Theory and Practice (2007),
Contexts of Modernity – A survey to Portuguese composers
(2011),
Reason, Cognition and Expression in Music Practices (2018),
Musica Instrumentalis (2019) and
Musica Humana (2020).
Agata Meissner, PhD cand. at Mozarteum University Salzburg
Agata Meissner graduated from Frideric Chopin Music University in
harpsichord and Musicology at Warsaw University (2013), and
finished her postgraduate studies at Academy of Music in Cracow in
harpsichord (2021). Since 2020 she has worked as a harpsichordist
at University Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 2020 she started her PhD
studies, during which she is researching on the keyboard music in
Austria in 17th and 18th century. She performed solo and chamber
music in Poland, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Hungary,
Slovakia and the UK. As a researcher Agata Meissner is interested
in early music era and in culture of those times.
Dr Cristina Pascu, researcher at National Academy of Music
in Cluj Napoca
Cristina Pascu, a university researcher, a Ph.D. holder, a
journalist, currently serves as a musicologist and spokesperson
for the National Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She
earned her degrees in Psychology from Babeș-Bolyai University,
followed by dual degrees in Musicology and Piano at the National
Academy of Music. Throughout her career Cristina Pascu conducted
research internships at the University of Cambridge and Hochschule
für Musik Freiburg. Among others she was awarded the 'Atlas'
scholarship by the French Government (2022).
Prof. Birger Petersen, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Birger Petersen is Professor of Music Theory at the Johannes
Gutenberg University Mainz. His work focuses on the history of
music theory from the 16th to the 20th century, organ music and
organ landscapes of the 19th and 20th centuries and contemporary
music. In 2021, he was awarded the Academy Prize of the State of
Rhineland-Palatinate for special merits in research and teaching.
Recent publications:
Die Musik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (2020);
Elsa Barraine und die Résistance in Frankreich (2021);
Glenn Gould. Auf der Suche nach Perfektion (2024, in
prep.);
Josef Gabriel Rheinberger. Als München leuchtete (2024, in
prep.).
Dr Ivana Petković Lozo, Assist. Prof. at University of Arts
in Belgrade
Dr Ivana Petković Lozo is a musicologist, an assist. professor at
the Department of Musicology of the Faculty of Music at the
University of Arts in Belgrade. Her fields of scholarly interest
include European
fin de siècle music, relations between music and painting
as well as music and literature, the philosophy of art, and
aesthetics of music. She is the author of two books:
The Late Oeuvre of Claude Debussy: “Truths” about the French
Myth
(Belgrade 2011) and
Stevan Mokranjac in the Writings of “Others” (with Olga
Otašević, Belgrade 2014) and research papers. She is a member of
the Serbian Musicological Society and the International
Musicological Society.
Dr hab. Piotr Podlipniak, Assoc. Prof. at Adam Mickiewicz
University, Poznań
Piotr Podlipniak is a professor at the Department of Musicology of
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. His main areas of
interest are the cognitive basis of music, biological sources of
human musicality, musical universals, vocal communication, music
and emotions, musical semiotics, the origin of music and language,
the evolution of preconceptual and conceptual meaning, music
perception, and methodology of musicology. In his musicological
research, he refers to such academic disciplines as cognitive
science, evolutionary biology, ethology, evolutionary psychology,
cognitive psychology, and comparative anthropology. He is an
editor-in-chief of the journal “Interdisciplinary Studies in
Musicology”.
Prof. Tijana Popović Mladjenović, University of Arts in
Belgrade
Tijana Popović Mladjenović is Professor of Musicology at the
Faculty of Music, at the University of Arts in Belgrade. Her main
research interests include
fin de siècle music, poetics of
music of the 20th and 21st centuries, aesthetics and philosophy of
music, issues of musical thinking and musical time, as well as the
relationship between music and other arts. She is a member of the
Academia Europaea, as well as the National Council for Scientific
and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. As a
visiting professor, she has taught in Jerusalem, Vilnius,
Ljubljana, Sarajevo and Cetinje. She has authored five books,
published more than 130 research papers and co-edited more than 30
collective and individual monographs.
Bruce Ramell, freelance researcher, Haddenham
Bruce Ramell studied music as a mature student after working for
some years in high temperature technology, and gained a Master’s
Degree in Historical Musicology at Goldsmiths College, University
of London. He then taught music and mathematics at GCSE and
A-Level and latterly became a preparatory school headmaster. He
composes, plays the sackbut and conducted an à cappella choir for
25 years. He is now retired and continues to study. One of his
main philosophical interests is how we can formulate a philosophy
of depth in the arts.
Dr Kamilė Rupeicaitė, senior researcher at Lithuanian
Culture Research Institute, Assoc. Prof. at Lithuanian Academy of
Music and Theatre, Vilnius
Dr. Kamilė Rupeikaitė is a senior researcher at the Lithuanian
Culture Research Institute and Associate professor of music
history at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Rupeikaitė
has participated in international conferences in Lithuania,
Israel, Finland, Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland and elsewhere,
has published articles in peer-reviewed Lithuanian and foreign
publications. Her research interests include musical instruments
in the Bible, multicultural contexts of music, musical culture of
Lithuanian Jews. Rupeikaitė is the author of the monograph on
Lithuanian composer Anatolijus Šenderovas (2020, in Lithuanian).
Alison Stevens, PhD cand. at University of Edinburgh
Alison Stevens is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.
She has a master’s degree in music theory from the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, where she studied the role of dance in
mid-to-late eighteenth-century European experience of meter. While
studying there she learned English change ringing at the nearby
Smith College bell tower, and this practice has become the focus
of her PhD work and her presentation today.
Dr Kalliopi Stigka, High School of Neo Faliro-Piraeus;
Joannis Kourtis, composer, Montpellier
Kalliopi Stigka, PhD, studied piano and musicology in Greece and
France. For her research, she was honored with a prize and a grant
from the Gazi-Triantafyllopoulos Foundation in 2002. Since 2010
she has been qualified as ‘Maître de Conférences’ by the French
National Council of Universities. She is also a Graduate of the
Department of Political Science and History of Panteion University
(Bachelor 2021). Her research interests lie in the fields of
sociology of music and of history of Greek contemporary popular
music.
Ioannis Kourtis, studied composition at Ionian University and
later at Paul Valery University in Montpellier. He wrote many
works for orchestra and chamber ensembles and composed music for
five feature films and several short films and documentaries.
Since February 2010 he has been an alumnus of the Berlinale talent
campus. In 2012 he was chosen to compose the music for the Cypriot
EU presidency. In 2013 he composed the soundtrack for the film
“Imbabazi – The pardon”, which was selected and presented at many
film festivals worldwide.
Márton G. Szives, Hungarian Academy of Arts, Budapest
Márton Gábor Szives is a percussionist and researcher who creates
performative concerts throughout Europe. He is constantly working
with foreign and Hungarian composers to develop new performances
to enthral the audience and improve European new music literature.
With new works dedicated to him each year, he has been invited to
the stage from Romania to Florida. Even in his junior years at
university, he was awarded the Pro Arte Gold Medal and the New
National Excellence Program three times for his research. In 2023,
he received the scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
Dr M. Belén Vargas, lecturer at University of Granada
Dr M. Belen Vargas is Lecturer in History and Sciences of Music at
University of Granada. She has focused on the study of music in
19th century Spain press. She is author of several books, articles
and chapters in monographs devoted to criticism, advertising and
music trade, sheet music supplements, iconography in illustrated
and women magazines, and a methodology proposal for the music
research in the press. She has carried out research stays in
London and Edinburgh in recent years and now belongs in a project
at University of Granada on epistolary collection of Manuel de
Falla and the international projection of his musical work.
Marko Vesić, PhD cand. at University of Arts in Belgrade
Marko Vesić is a contemporary artist and researcher from Belgrade,
who creates in the field of experimental and applied music, poetry
and post-conceptual artistic practices. Next to creativity, he
directed his interests towards the questions of applied aesthetics
and philosophy of science. He was a participant of a several
academic programs, conferences, projects and masterclasses in
country and abroad, and won some awards for his musical and
essayistic output. Currently he is a PhD candidate in composition
at the Faculty of musical arts in Belgrade.
Zuzana Vojnovič, PhD cand. at Charles University in Prague
Mgr. Zuzana Vojnovič is a doctoral student in the Music Education
Department at Charles University in Prague. The title of her
thesis is
Pianist’s Intuition While Studying Compositions. In 2021
she completed her master’s degree at Charles University and after
it she attended some courses at the Methodology Centre of the
Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, and made necessary
consultations with music experts concerning her doctoral thesis.
Dr Petros Vouvaris, Assist. Prof. at University of
Macedonia in Thessaloniki
Petros Vouvaris is an Assistant Professor in Music Form and
Analysis at the Department of Music Science and Art, University of
Macedonia, Greece. He holds a doctoral degree from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, a master’s degree from the University
of North Carolina-Greensboro, USA, and a bachelor’s degree from
the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He is the author
of the book
Introduction to Formal Analysis of Tonal Music (2015 [in
Greek]) and co-editor of the collective volume
Perspectives on Greek Musical Modernism (Routledge,
forthcoming). He is an active performer and has given piano solo
and chamber music recitals both in Greece and the USA.
Dr Riccardo D. Wanke, University of Coimbra
Riccardo Wanke, author of the book “Sound in The
Ecstatic-Materialist Perspective on Experimental Music” by
Routledge (2021), is an experienced multidisciplinary researcher,
having conducted his doctoral and post-doctoral research in both
the humanities (historical musicology, 2013-2019) and the natural
sciences (chemistry, 2006-2010). He has authored (and co-authored)
contributions in musicology and music theory, and central of his
research is the bridge between cognitive psychology and
musicology. As a composer and performer, he explores the
electronic manipulation of sound, having performed live worldwide
and published music for international labels.
Prof. Miloš Zatkalik, University of Arts in Belgrade
Miloš Zatkalik, a composer and music theorist, is Professor at the
University of Arts in Belgrade. For several years he was a
Visiting Professor at universities in Novi Sad, Kragujevac and
Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina). He lectured by invitation at
universities in Canada, Norway, Germany, the USA, Slovenia and
Australia. Zatkalik’s research interests include analysis of
20th-century music; musical teleology; relationships between music
and other arts. Recent publications include a book on post-tonal
prolongation.
