Research & Teaching

Academia

Publications

Forthcoming / Under Consideration

• “Artistic Research, or the Knowledge/s of Artistic Practice/s” — overview and interview with Fransisca Skoogh, Society for Music Theory blog series.
• “Experiments in Experience: Listening to Rooms and Pianos” — co-authored with Fiona Smyth, chapter in Experience, Music, Experiment: Pragmatism and Artistic Research.
• “Cultivating the Second-Person Position in Music Performance: An Autoethnography of Shared Experience in Rehearsing György Ligeti’s Three Pieces for Two Pianos” — chapter in Writing About Personal Experience as Academic Research in Music Studies.

Published

• “Exploring Real-Time Sonic Adjustments in the Performance of Notated Music: Audio-Haptics, Space Acoustics, and the Variable Timbres of Piano Sound” — chapter in New Thoughts on Piano Performance (2017).
• “A cybernetic view of theory and practice, or reflections on integrating analysis and performance” — Society for Music Theory blog (February 2017).
• “Real-time Adjustments in the Performance of Notated Piano Music: Morton Feldman, Space Acoustics, and the Variable Timbres of Piano Sound” — Proceedings of the International Symposium on Performance Science 2011.
• “Performer’s Agency and the Ideal of Transparency: Practical Contradictions and Ideological Tensions Facing Performers of Musical Masterworks” — Musical Perspectives (April 2010).

Conferences

International

Presentations from 2008 to 2021, including:

• Fifth-annual Historical Performance Conference, Indiana University (2021)
• Intercongressional Symposium of the International Musicological Society, Lucerne (2019)
• Fifth International Performance Studies Network Conference, Oslo (2018)
• International Symposium on Performance Science, Reykjavík (2017)
• Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Musikinformatik, Karlsruhe (multiple presentations)
• Cambridge University Performance Studies Network Conference (2014, 2013, 2011)
• London International Piano Symposium (2013)
• Various other European and international venues

National

• “The Improvising Brain III,” Georgia State University (2017)
• North-East Music Cognition Group meeting, NYU (2013)
• “Counterpoints: Nineteenth-Century Literature and Music,” Fordham University (2011)
• Society for Music Perception and Cognition Conference, Eastman (2011)
• Indiana University Special Symposium (2009)
• Harvard Graduate Music Forum (2005)
• Princeton–Cornell–Penn–Columbia Graduate Consortium (2005)

Presentations & Workshops

Guest presentations and workshops at Northeastern University, MIT, Harvard, George Washington University, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the International University of Andalusia (2012–2019).

Collaborations & Initiatives

• “Music Performance Collabor-a-thon” organizer, Harvard University (2016)
• “Musical Performers, Musical Works” special session chair, Society for Music Theory (2016)
• “Performance as Experience” co-organized panel (2016)
• “Artistic Research” workshop at Harvard (2016)
• “Agency and Musical Performance” co-organized session, Leuven (2014)
• “Theorizing Real-time Experience,” conference presentation with Dr. Hubert Ho (2013)

University Teaching

Documents

• CV (downloadable PDF)
• Teaching statement

Research Areas

• Tone in classical piano performance
• Creative agency in classical music performance
• Critical ethnography and autoethnography approaches
• Cognitive function and embodied approaches
• Russian piano pedagogy (early 20th century)
• Shared experience and intersubjectivity in performing arts
• Romantic preluding practices
• French and Eastern European keyboard methods
• Music analysis as creative practice and improvisation

Doctoral Research

Dissertation: “Theorizing Pianistic Experience: Tradition, Instrument, Performer” (May 2012, Columbia University)
Principal Advisor: Professor George E. Lewis

Drawing on interviews, pedagogical manuals, personal performance experience, and current research in cognitive function, psychoacoustics, sound studies, and cultural theory, this study foregrounds the dynamic, interactive, and improvisatory aspects of a classical pianist’s work with musical sound.

Major sources — Cognitive theory: Francisco Varela, Ulric Neisser, Paul Bach-y-Rita. Sound studies: Jonathan Sterne, Aden Evens, Morton Feldman. Piano pedagogy: Heinrich Neuhaus, and contemporary interviews.

Fellowships & Awards

• Council for the Arts at MIT seed-funding grant (2017) — for a sound theater piece on acoustic space listening
• Winter Music Residencies, Banff Centre for the Arts (2017)
• Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative research grant (2012–2013) — experimental study on pianists’ interpretative work
• Teagle Collegium on Psychological Science and Student Learning, Columbia University (2009–2010)
• Reid Hall Institute for Scholars Summer Residence, Paris (2007) — research on French Conservatory methods
• Isabella Lean Award for Excellence in French Language and Literature, Boston University (2000)
• Boston University Trustee Scholar (1995–2000)

Other Activities

Piano Teaching

• Integrating keyboard harmony, analysis, and improvisation
• Cultivating sustained attentiveness to sound and physical comfort
• Developing vivid sonic imagination

Vocal & Chamber Coaching

• Morningside Opera Company, NYC (2009–2011)
• Performance and Analysis Seminar, Harvard (2012–2014)

School Programs

• Children’s Choir and School “Gergana,” Bulgarian Consulate General, New York (2007–2012)
• High 5: Literacy through the Arts After School Program (2006)

Student Mentoring

• Navigating dual-degree programs combining performance and academics
• Nurturing diverse talents and interests
• Finding common ground between performance experience and other areas