Proposta para trabalho final de Mestrado em Interpretação Artística – Piano, acerca do compositor italiano do século XX Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) e da sua obra para piano. Serão abordados aspetos biográficos, o contexto sociopolítico e cultural na Europa e Itália na primeira metade do século, o enquadramento das obras para piano no contexto…[Read more]

Les usages de la reproduction sonore parmi les musulmans mauriciens illustrent les liens entre religion publique et médiation religieuse. Les usages de la reproduction sonore parmi les musulmans mauriciens illustrent les liens entre religion publique et médiation religieuse. Ces deux dimensions de la religion s’appuient sur des objets mat…[Read more]

This thesis examines the relationship of the ‘approved’ avant-garde culture to the ‘outsider’ culture of experimentalism. This relationship exhibits some parallels to the idea of cultural hegemony articulated by Edward Said in Orientalism and is informed by four basic aesthetic principles. These principles can be found in the work of Corneli…[Read more]

On June 17, 2018, the Aquarius, a boat carrying refugees, docked in Valencia. The wave of solidarity that ran through the city and neighboring towns in response to this arrival was intermingled with ignorance of a phenomenon—migration across the Mediterranean Sea—that has been a historical constant, and which indexes both the aspirations and fea…[Read more]

The prints featured in this exhibition are all products of the Meiji period (1868–1912), a time of massive cultural and institutional transformation in Japanese culture. The era is characterized by rapid westernization brought about after the opening of Japanese ports in 1854 and the subsequent restoration of the Meiji Emperor in 1868. The p…[Read more]

During the last five decades, public, intellectual, and academic debates have created an increased awareness of so-called transhumanist discourses and social movements accompanied by a diverse body of theoretical works in philosophy, social sciences, and humanities which can broadly be described as posthumanist. Building on a three year long…[Read more]

Call for papers for the II Historical Soundscapes Meeting – Évora 2019, that will take place at the University of Évora, October 16th-18th, 2019. The meeting is organized by the FCT research project PASEV – Patrimonialization of Évora’s Soundscape (1540-1910) (ref ALT20-03-0145-FEDER-028584 • LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-028584). Further information and…[Read more]

Finite Element Analyses (FEA) was used to predict the resonant modes of the Tsar Kolokol, a 200-ton fractured bell that sits outside the Kremlin in Moscow. Frequency and displacement data informed a physical model implemented in the Faust programming language (Functional Audio Stream). The authors hosted a concert for Tsar bell and carillon with…[Read more]

Essay for the online manual on how to open a pirate kindergarden, commissioned by Soprasotto and WeMake, Milan (IT).

In this chapter I discuss how contests about religious language have revolved around a contrast between, on the one hand, a preference for literalism, with its emphasis on reference and denotation; and on the other hand, a valuation of the poetic functions of language and its material properties. Turning to the issue of electronically mediated…[Read more]

Shipibo indigenous people perform a sophisticated array of vocal musical genres, including short ‘laughing songs’ called osanti. These song-jokes make fun of certain non-humans, mostly animals. They are by definition sung from within the non-humans’ perspective. Osanti are only performed by trained specialists in indigenous medicine and sorce…[Read more]

Shipibo indigenous people perform a sophisticated array of vocal musical genres, including short ‘laughing songs’ called osanti. These song-jokes make fun of certain non-humans, mostly animals. They are by definition sung from within the non-humans’ perspective. Osanti are only performed by trained specialists in indigenous medicine and sorce…[Read more]

This bibliography presents selected sources (mostly in English) at the intersection of music and architecture. Many of the sources approach the relationship between the practices through multiple case studies. Several books focused on particular artists in both disciplines have been included not because those artists are central to the study of…[Read more]

This paper explores the role of mobile telecommunication and technology firms (MTTs) in the distribution of recorded music in Ghana and Kenya. These countries both have vibrant music markets with weak formal distribution networks. Limited enforcement of copyright regimes and weak market regulation created new entrepreneurial business models. While…[Read more]

An essay written for the catalog for the exhibition, “Benga: Kenyan Kaleidoscope” (Bureau Sepän). Originally written in English; French translation by Gabriella Seemann.

Abstract from the catalog:
Se référant à une performance musicale à laquelle il a assisté et impliquant l’un des musiciens les plus en vue du Kenya, Dan Aceda, dans cet ess…[Read more]

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (1314) portrays Hell as an alienated realm, in which the doomed spirits must spend eternity in isolation and regret. Franz Liszt’s two-movement Dante Symphony (1857), based on the Inferno and Purgatorio, gives musical form to Dante’s textual expressions of agony. These evocations of suffering are enhanced by Lisz…[Read more]

Contemporary developments in the medium of the moving picture, particularly in relation to the general digitisation of media, are bringing about substantial changes to long-held conceptions of both its theory and its practice. This thesis asserts that a significant factor in these, both historically and in terms of potential development, is the…[Read more]

A review of the “Season of Love” Tri-Partite Exhibition at the Tampa Museum of Art featuring the work of Patricia Cronin, Yayoi Kusama, and Robert Indiana.

What were the sounds of war in the early modern period? What were the sounds of peace? The period between 1570 and 1750—roughly coincident with the cultural era known in Western contexts as “the Baroque”—was characterized by almost continual conflict in Europe. Whether caught up in the French Wars of Religion, the English Civil War, the Thirty…[Read more]

For some years I have been meaning to upload some of the material I have gathered over the years, including interviews I conducted with experimental composers and performers. One of the most useful, clearest interviews was my interview with Michael Nyman, 23 March 1983, just a few days after I had seen him in Hammersmith with the eponymous Michael…[Read more]