Our Research Community

Research Supervisors

Professor Jonathan Clark, Howard Skempton (external)

Research Title

Aspects of continuity: a portfolio of compositions and commentary

Research Topic Outline

The aim of this practice-based project is to create a portfolio of notated compositions and accompanying written commentary investigating aspects of musical continuity. The word ‘continuity’ here refers specifically to its internal presence within a composition, resulting from the developing trajectory of the musical substance in the notated score, plus its auditory perception resulting from the listening experience. This topic will be researched through three specific areas: adaptable form, repetition and continuity problems. The outcome of this project will be a series of new instrumental and vocal works aimed at learners in education, performers and performance-related organisations, plus music theorists and musicologists working in related fields.

Research Supervisors:

Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell
Dr Lucia Piquero

Research Title:

Embodied Interventions: Disrupting Implicit Bias in Contemporary Dance Higher Education

Research Topic Outline:

This research aims to construct a narrative of what implicit bias looks like within contemporary dance culture and education in the UK, aiming to create meaningful, inclusive training experiences for Disabled dancers. It will critically examine Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) training in the context of dance higher education to broaden opportunities for staff and students to recognise their bias. Building on MSc research ‘Phenomenological Narrative of Autonomy and Empowerment for Disabled Contemporary Dance Students’ this project will respond to a recurrent theme: participants felt misunderstood and misrepresented by staff and peers. These insights form the foundation to identify and challenge systemic barriers to inclusion. How do systemic power structures in higher education shape implicit bias towards Disabled dancers in the UK, and how can bias training interventions be developed to create more inclusive training environments that best represent the experiences of the students?

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sam Hayden

Dr Tom Challenger

Dr Hans Koller

Research Title:

Jazz as part of the multidisciplinary experience & improvisation across art forms – reimagining how jazz is performed and exploring stimuli for composition.

Research Topic Outline:

This research project explores the use of visual stimuli as the basis for jazz composition; the role of the modern jazz composer/improvising musician in the creation of collaborative work with other art forms; and exploring how one of the pillars of jazz music – our creative practise of communicating and reacting musically on the bandstand – can be a central theme when working with other artistic disciplines. This project will investigate the compositional methods of artists including but not limited to Henry Threadgill, Don Cherry, Jason Moran, The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (The AACM) – who in interviews have often spoken about using other artistic disciplines as stimulus for their music – and vice versa.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Dr Aleks Szram

Dr Michelle Meinhart

Dr Ji Liu

Research Title:

The interpretative styles implied in Robert Schumann’s piano music, according to his different compositional periods

Research Topic Outline:

In recent years, the art of pianism associated with Robert Schumann’s piano compositions has attracted much attention, with scholarship focusing on Schumann’s piano music in terms of its pianistic textures. This research project aims to trace his ever-changing attitude to his piano compositions by investigating the different editions of Schumann’s piano music, to provide the plurality of interpretative approaches to his piano music, especially for the inner voice, throughout a dynamic process of practice on Schumann’s piano music. Additionally, this project will explore how Schumann’s musical notations trigger the researcher to differentiate their performing decision-making and what is the difference between Schumann’s virtuosity and his contemporaries after solving the difficulties in playing the eccentricities of Schumann’s early version of Kreisleriana, based on the researcher’s artistic experience of playing different editions of this piece.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Dance

Research Supervisors:

Professor Jonathan Clark

Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell

Research Title:

Nurturing the Process: A Feldenkrais Method-Informed Choreographic Practice

Research Topic Outline:

Choreographic practices in contemporary dance often highlight individual movement expression and involve collaboration between dancers and choreographers. The choreographic process plays a crucial role in the originality of choreographic work, and its quality can considerably influence the lived experience of those involved. This research examines how to integrate the Feldenkrais Method into choreographic processes and the impacts this approach leads to. Despite the contribution of the limited research on Feldenkrais-informed choreographic practices, our understanding of this interdisciplinary choreographic approach is insufficient. Using a Practice-as-Research (PaR) approach, the choreographer-researcher integrated the Feldenkrais Method into solo and group choreographic processes respectively, resulting in the artistic outcome of three live dance performances. Data was collected through journaling, video recording, and interviews with the dancer-participants. The analysis utilised a mixed approach of phenomenological description and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Research Supervisors:

Dr Emilie Capulet
Dr Michelle Meinhart

Research Title: Women Composers: A Study on Florence Ashton Marshall and Marguerite Olagnier.

Research Topic Outline: This research aims to uncover the life and works of Florence Ashton Marshall and Marguerite Olagnier with the main purpose of exploring a whole new repertoire that has been forgotten with time. Moreover, it aims to understand how societal and familial expectations had an impact on women’s music education and on their professional careers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, being able to compare how different geographical locations, in the same time frame, had an impact in the production of musical works by female composers and how it affected their public recognition.

This research aims to tell unfamiliar stories, to uncover each composer’s music and to determine what factors contributed to its lack of preservation. The relevance of this research lies not only in its scholar contribution, providing musicologists with more information to represent the musical canon more accurately without its overwhelming male atmosphere, but also on its contribution to the public by creating material that will hopefully transform the future of gender equality in music.

Research Supervisors: Professor Jonathan Clark

Research Title: The performer as a musical demiurge

Research Topic Outline: The modern musician interprets compositions from the past and the present, often removed from the composer in space and time. Live performances are transient, but recordings provide long-lasting soundscapes (and in 3D, in a way) of the music and its interpretations which reflect the  time and space in which each recording was made. I will explore the role of recordings as works of art in their own right – a combination of the composer’s intention, understand, knowledge and performance skills of the interpreter, and the time and space in which each selected recording was made.

Research Pathway:

PhD Dance Science

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sam Hayden

Dr James Brouner

Professor Emma Redding (external)

Research Title:

The Body Beyond Instrument: Sensorimotor Transformation Through Whole Body Sonification

Research Topic Outline:

The overall aim of this research is to understand how producing sound generated from 3D joint positional data can be used to elicit a greater sense of embodiment in creative practice and optimize technical performance in training.  This investigation explores the artistic and biomechanical possibilities of mapping movement to sound using wearable motion capture suits to produce raw data to be transferred into sound. For creative purposes, the motion capture suit allows for the dancer to become the instrument and create sound in real-time. For biomechanical purposes, the motion capture suit provides auditory biofeedback to elicit a training response, specifically optimizing the tracking of the ankle in the heel rise. In both the creative and biomechanical aspects of this research, identifying whether the sound allows for a more intrinsic motor learning experience for the wearer of the suit is of interest.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Dr Aleks Szram

Dr Dario van Gammeren

Dr Ann van Allen Russell (external)

Research Title:

‘How many strings? A methodological approach to the performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 995-1006a on the expanded multi-string guitar

Research Topic Outline:

‘How many strings? A methodological approach to the performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 995-1006a on the expanded multi-string guitar’ is a creative research project that uses a multi-mode Practise as Research (PaR) methodology to explore Bach’s so-called lute works as transcriptions for the eleven-string guitar through self-reflective practice. The research presents the works in performance score transcriptions for the eleven-string guitar and a performance guide that discusses tunings, ornamentation, interpretation, and an approach to detailed fingering. This is then documented through a studio recording performed by this author on the eleven-string guitar of the complete BWV 995-1006a compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Research Supervisors: Professor Dominic Murcott, Dr Tom Challenger

Research Title: Concept, Sound and Feel of Jazz in the 1920s and 1930s as drivers of new, original music for creative and educational practice

Research Pathway:

PhD Dance Pedagogy

Research Supervisors:

Professor Jonathan Clark

Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell

Research Title:

Embodying tactile-kinaesthetic imagery: reimagining bodily/fleshly experience through Somatic Improvisation & expanding its contributions to dance practice, process and product.

Research Topic Outline:

Charlie’s research explores somatic improvisation from the perspectives of practice, process and product. Overarching the project is an open exploration of how somatic improvisation practice utilises tactile-kinaesthetic imagery to inform and reinforce movers’ embodied awareness and understanding of their anatomy and physiology. This practice of Experiential Imaginative Anatomy & Physiology is being disseminated through a handbook to guide practice. An aspect of the research considers the shared aspects of somatic improvisation as a product – or experiential outcome – whilst considering how a training practice becomes both personal and performative when integrated into a choreographic product and witnessed/explored in the public sphere.

A new approach to considering the phenomenological processes underlying somatic improvisation is explored in this research, offering novel terminology to practice: enfleshing and kinaesthetic reimagining. The utility of terms and processes involving philosophical concepts that are embodied everyday when working with tactile-kinaesthetic imagery and the body are packaged in a way that are accessible and meaningful to dancers, with the intention of further guiding movers interested in the sensitive/expressive moving body.

Research Pathway:

PhD Music Science

Research Supervisors:

Professor Emma Redding (External)

Dr Mark Phillips (External)

Research Title:

From Confusion to Clarity: Exploring the Diagnostic and Retraining Challenges for Dystonic Musicians

Research Topic Outline:

The primary aim of this research is to enhance the understanding of musicians’ focal dystonia (MD), a movement disorder that can affect fine motor control. This will be achieved by identifying and analysing the barriers and enablers that musicians face, from the diagnosis phase through to the retraining process. There is a pressing need for improved diagnostic practices, more effective rehabilitation methods, and better support systems, as musicians often find themselves unaware and uninformed about their condition. By assessing current awareness levels among stakeholders and exploring how musicians navigate their retraining journey, we can hope to improve outcomes for those affected by reducing delays and confusion. Additionally, we can draw valuable insights from the experiences of dystonic musicians, enabling healthy musicians to recognise the significance of their neurological playing health and adopt practices that may reduce their risk of developing the disorder.

Research Pathway:

MPhil Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sam Hayden

Dr Bruno Heinen

Dr Hans Koller

Research Title:

Converging Early Music and Jazz

Research Topic Outline:

This MPhil thesis will comprise a creative portfolio of 12 original compositions for solo piano (totaling ≈50 minutes) and a 15,000-word project commentary. The work explores Philip’s role as a composer and performer bridging jazz and classical traditions, with a focus on reimagining improvisational practices from 17th-century music, particularly through the lens of Johann Rosenmüller’s works.

Research Pathway:

PhD Dance Pedagogy

Research Supervisors:

Professor Emma Redding (external)

Dr Liliana Araujo (external)

Research Title:

A Creative Practice Approach to Developing Resilience and Wellbeing Through Dance in Secondary Education

Research Topic Outline:

In a time of decreased mental health and wellbeing of young people, the Arts are an effective way of allowing freedom of expression, creativity and transferrable life skills, all of which play a significant role in the development of positive wellbeing and resilience. The intention of this doctoral study is to contribute to the existing field of resilience and wellbeing research, through a creative dance practice approach in Secondary age students. Using an interpretivist ontology, a group of teachers came together to work collaboratively to develop a Unit of Work to be delivered in schools to Year 7 students (11-12), guided by key aspects identified in the literature surrounding the development of resilience including the development of psychological skills, self-concordance and high-quality dance practice; ownership, creativity, roles, value, process, skills building, goals and the acquisition of strong movement skills. The outcome was ‘The Quest’ a scheme of work which places the student at the centre of their learning, emphasises process over product and promotes learning as non-linear.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Dominic Murcott

Professor Stephen Montague

Research Title:

Next Steps :  Innovations Within and Beyond Marching and Minimalism

Research Topic Outline:

While few contemporary composers delve deeply into the subject of marches or martial music, Jui-Ying strives to discover fresh approaches that move beyond their conventional roles — such as facilitating marching progressions or stirring social and ceremonial fervour. Rooted in military traditions, social occasions, and the art of dance throughout human history, marching music is not solely about steady steps or pacing motion. Stripping away its surface reveals an intrinsic connection to physical movement and draws an analogy to the ‘processing’ phenomenon central to minimalism (Reich, 1968). Furthermore, the rigidity, pulsation, and continuum of marching serve to organise soldiers’ steps while spontaneously and simultaneously providing a psychological sense of ‘freedom’ space that propels them toward their destinations. This duality seminary role of percussion in looping, minimalist pop music supports individual expression and synchronising participants within a cohesive musical framework (Stone, 2019). According to these, Jui-Ying has been exploring how their shared elements can shape new marching compositions or inspire other musical forms. By integrating sustained bipedal motion and minimalist analogies, she aims to revolutionise the coexistence and dynamics between liberality and rigour, ultimately achieving a sense of musical ‘flexibility’.

Research Pathway:

MPhil Dance Science

Research Supervisors:

Professor Emma Redding (external)

Dr Liliana Araujo (external)

Research Title:

Musculoskeletal Health in Chinese Classical Dance: From Art to Science to Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Research Topic Outline:

Chinese classical dance originates from traditional artistic aesthetics and includes highly demanding physical requirements which create substantial health challenges for dancers, including the risk of musculoskeletal injuries and chronic pain. Even though numerous scientific studies exist regarding the physical demands in Western dance styles such as ballet, Chinese classical dance lacks sufficient attention from dance science research. This thesis fills the existing knowledge gap by using cultural insights and scientific research to study the physical requirements, injury patterns and health improvement methods in Chinese classical dance. This thesis brings together knowledge of historical dance traditions with modern dance science approaches to expand our understanding of injury prevention and performance enhancement in Chinese classical dance, therefore extending to the scope of dance science research in non-western dance traditions.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sam Hayden

Dr Bruno Heinen

Research Title:

Counterpoint and polyphony in modern guitar. Use and application in improvisation and composition

Research Topic Outline:

This research investigates the application of counterpoint and polyphony in modern guitar, with a focus on composition and improvisation. Despite the abundance of jazz guitar method books, few explore the nuanced interplay of multiple melodic lines. This study aims to bridge this gap by analysing historical and contemporary guitarists, from early classical composers like M. Carulli and M. Carcassi to modern guitarists such as G. Hekselman and L. Lund, who exemplify polyphonic techniques in their playing and compositions. By examining classical and jazz works from diverse historical eras, the research will develop exercises and etudes that incorporate these principles, aiming to integrate them into jazz improvisation and guitar composition. Engaging with leading practitioners and scholarly works, this project seeks to enrich the pedagogical landscape and expand the expressive potential of the guitar. The outcomes will include a series of transcriptions, adaptations, original compositions, and arrangements, culminating in a thesis that offers new insights into polyphonic guitar techniques and their practical applications in modern music.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Dominic Murcott

Dr Amir Konjani

Research Title:

Polyphonic composition based on Persian music

Research Topic Outline:

Persian music is primarily monophonic, relying on a tuning system with unequal flexible intervals. Its modal system centres around seven Dastgahs and six Avazes, cyclical, multi-modal, and melody-based frameworks within a free metre context called the Radif. Oral tradition and improvisation are key elements of Persian music, while notation is less common. Although accidentals and modulations are limited, Persian melodies are generally characterised by their intricate melismatic patterns.

As a composer and performer with both Western and Persian musical training, Davood has been intrigued by the potential of Persian music as a foundation for polyphonic composition. This PhD, comprising a portfolio of 11 compositions as well as a reflective commentary, explores this potential. Six pieces were composed for Persian ensembles and singers. The first three explore an older Persian tuning system, applying it in both monophonic and polyphonic contexts. The subsequent three compositions look into the modern Persian tuning system and modal framework, displaying dense polyphonic textures through independent melodic lines, the superimposition of Persian Dastgahs, and unprepared modulations. The other five compositions adopt similar approaches to polyphony inspired by Persian music but are written for Western orchestral instruments.

This PhD provides innovative concepts for future polyphonic composition inspired by Persian music addressing the limited documentation and contributions of Persian composers in this area.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Dominic Murcott

Dr Amir Konjani

Research Title:

Azerbaijani Mugham in Contemporary Orchestral and Chamber Music Composition

Research Topic Outline:

This PhD thesis aims to develop and document a novel approach to composition, drawing inspiration from the formal elements and constrained aleatoric systems inherent in the musical traditions of Azerbaijani Mugham. The primary objective is to synthesize aleatoric music and chance factors in Western contemporary compositions, drawing inspiration from Azerbaijani Mugham, thereby expanding the boundaries of musical expression.

By examining the distinctive characteristics of these musical cultures, including modes, intervals, microtones, meters, instruments, and orchestration, as well as cultural differences and similarities, the study aims to identify how these elements can serve as either barriers or advantages in the creation of novel musical structures that bridge Mugham and Contemporary musical styles.

Furthermore, this research intends to contribute original compositions that showcase the integration of Azerbaijani Mugham with Western music, adding various colors to the contemporary musical landscape. Through the exploration of these musical trends and the development of creative projects, the study seeks to demonstrate the potential for cultural dialogue and exchange within the realm of composition.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Dr Guy Harries

Professor Sam Hayden

Research Title:

Expanding Instruments Soundscapes: The Application of Manipulating Acoustic in Live Performances

Research Topic Outline:

This research centres on a real-time live electronic music composition combining jazz, Korean folk music elements, and sound technology, representing the knowledge obtained through education and musical experiences. As a composer, Sia’s objective is to actively employ digital music software and sound equipment, together with both conventional and contemporary music techniques in composition to enhance the diversity and productivity of his work. Contemporary music has made it feasible to experiment with a wide range of new music due to advances in science and technology, recording, and recording equipment, as well as the proliferation of musical expertise among diverse cultures. This includes mixing classical composing approaches with digital techniques, as well as developing a thorough musical composition methodology.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Dr Emilie Capulet

Dr Ji Liu

Dr Guy Harries

Research Title:

Exploring Strategies for Integrating Classical and Contemporary Elements into Participatory Music Performances

Research Topic Outline:

Xinyu’s research investigates the intersection of participatory music performance and the performing arts, focusing on how audience engagement can transform both the spectator and performer experiences. Her work bridges interdisciplinary dialogues around participatory practices, spectatorship, and community dynamics, examining these elements in diverse social and educational contexts in China and the UK. By exploring innovative forms of audience participation, Xinyu seeks to deepen the impact of performances and enhance their creative process. Her research also delves into the integration of visual and light art as tools for fostering participation, thus broadening the ways in which audiences interact with live performances. Through this exploration, she aims to create new modes of interaction that enrich both the audience’s engagement and the overall performing arts experience.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Dr Christina Guillaumier

Dr Michelle Meinhart

Research Title:

Rethinking Bach: Hidden Messages Between the Lines – A Re-Consideration of Interpretative Choices Implicit in the Unaccompanied Solo Violin Music of J.S. Bach

Research Topic Outline:

This is a practice-led research project focusing on the repertoire of J.S. Bach’s Six Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas, BWV.1001-1006. The focus of the findings is to re-examine the modern approaches and interpretations, based on Bach’s original notations, in performing the Six Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas. This research does not aim to provide an accurate interpretation of these unaccompanied works, but it attempts to demonstrate how a modern performer exploring the possible ways in examining Bach’s autograph and manuscripts, adapting the relevant knowledge into performances while enhancing the knowledge towards Bach’s performance style.

Research Supervisors: Dr Christina Guillaumier, Dr Michelle Meinhart, Mikhail Kazakevich (advisor)

Research Title: Ordering, Technical Demands, and Practical Solutions of Schumann’s Symphonic Études, Op. 13

Research Topic Outline: Nefeli Erma’s piano performance oriented research, aims to investigate the factors which make Schumann’s Symphonic Études Op. 13 one of the most demanding pieces in the piano repertoire. Her research will explore and provide a variety of ordering and presenting possibilities for the contemporary performers, from hardest to easiest, as the work has two versions published (1837 and 1852), alongside Posthumous Variations.

In addition, a connectivity with learning processes, body physiology and psychology will be examined and incorporated, explaining how a specific technique, movement, weighted pressure, gesture and hand fixation can alternate and shape a performer’s sound palette, including the orchestral and symphonic sonorities demanded by the work. A detailed explanation of piano technique, possible exercises and examples will be further developed, with particular focus on two of the hardest etudes: Étude III and Étude IX. The material provided will be tailored to support nowadays performers in mastering the etudes with maximum efficiency and musicality.

Lastly the study will present a comparative viewpoint between historical and contemporary approaches to the etudes. This will integrate an exploration of how audiences of Schumann’s time perceived the work in contrast to modern listeners, as well as how the perspectives of the performers have evolved in time.

Research Supervisors: Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell, Dr Lucia Piquero

Research Title: Breaking the Choreographic Habit: How Improvisational Training Fosters Creating New Movements in Dancers

Research Topic Outline: This research will define the choreographic habit (dancers’ reliance on learned movements limiting creativity) and improvisational training (encouraging unscripted movements to boost flexibility/plasticity), noting gaps in the existing data, and present three broad research questions centred around: breaking habits, adapting to experience levels, and mixed impacts. The research will use a 12-week quasi-experiment (60 dancers: 30 experimental/improvisation, 30 control/structured training; split by experience/genre) and collect data via pre/post dance videos (motion capture for movement diversity/uniqueness) and interviews. Analysis will be via paired t-tests, ANOVA, mixed ANOVA, and Spearman’s correlation. The research aims to advance dance theories; practically inform training to foster creativity; supplement statistics on t-tests for result validity.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sophie Fuller (external)

Dr Hans Koller

Professor Gabriella Dall’Olio (advisor)

Research Title:

The Patriarchy of Jazz: Women, Unusual Instruments, and a New Pedagogy Promoting Inclusion

Research Topic Outline:

The history of Jazz, as an accepted art form, has been studied and documented since early in the twentieth century. Literature about jazz and jazz men is prolific. Books written, for example, by Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz (1968), The Swing Era (1989) or Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward’s Jazz: A History of America’s Music (2000) cover the progression of the genre through the twentieth century. Many books have been written by the jazz men themselves, such as Miles Davis’ Miles: The Autobiography (1990), or Louis Armstrong, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1986). There are far fewer publications written specifically about women in jazz. Their themes include women’s collective history, struggles, and reluctant acceptance by men into this art form. The concept of the extra burden women jazz artists faced playing unusual instruments, such as the harp, has not yet been extensively discussed.

This work will study women who play instruments not often connected to jazz. The study presented here is an exploration of jazz women playing strings, and especially the harp. The harp has been Felice’s particular instrument of choice for over fifty years. With its ungainly size, weight, and diatonic nature, women harpists have endured special hurdles playing jazz. The core of a jazz group is usually piano, some kind of horn, acoustic bass, and drums. There are many women who play all of these instruments, and they have had their own challenges establishing themselves in an art form mostly led by men. There is an interesting correlation between the advances of women’s rights and freedom with the advancement of women playing jazz, which will be examined in detail. Included in the investigation will be the evolution of jazz and popular music played on the harp, and those who play this music.

The study of women playing unusual instruments would not be complete if it did not include the notion of patriarchy in jazz. This research will address this particular idea with an observation of the past, the present, and looking toward the future of the next generation of jazz artists. How may a new concept of pedagogy create more acceptance of women, queer, and non-binary people joining to make the music? Will tolerance of unacceptable behavior towards women finally become a thing of the past? These are just a few of the questions this work plans to address.

Gaining an understanding of the evolution of jazz and how it relates to women and society as a whole is key to learning how to change the narrative of patriarchy in jazz. Through forums, interviews, surveys, and lived experience, this research intends to discuss the lessons derived from the past. The discussion will include how education, representation, role-modeling, inclusion, welcoming diversity, embracing feminine qualities, and making jazz accessible to new, unusual instruments can elevate the music made in this unique art form.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sophie Fuller (external)

Dr Guy Harries

Research Title:

Queer Sound: An exploration of LGBTQIA+ community through electroacoustic music practice

Research Topic Outline:

In this practice-based study, Maya-Leigh aims to explore ways in which electroacoustic music practices can be used to create electroacoustic music that is inspired by London’s diverse Queer community. By collaborating with other Queer artists, performing and curating performances in Queer environments and reflecting on their own practice as a London based Queer practitioner, they will examine concepts such as collective Queer expressions of identity, inclusivity and diversity. This study will result in a series of collaborative electroacoustic performances and recordings as well as a portfolio of electroacoustic compositions, composed and performed by the researcher.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Dr Guy Harries
Professor Jonathan Clark
Dr Amir Konjani

Research Title:

Sonic Gossip: Reimagining Feminist Rituals in Music

Research Topic Outline:

This research explores gossip within contemporary music culture, particularly across contemporary classical and pop. Once signifying friendly conversation and female intimacy, gossip was gradually redefined as malicious and trivial, reflecting the erosion of women’s status during the witch hunts. Drawing on Silvia Federici’s theories on women’s persecution—from early modern Europe to today’s capitalist societies—this project reimagines gossip as a site of resistance, reclaiming the authority of the female voice and body in musical performance and composition.

Through autoethnographic research and practice-as-research, this study integrates theory with creative experimentation. Gossip is explored as a creative strategy, incorporating informal conversations, social media interactions, and ritual processes through collective choir practices and sonic meditations.

By integrating piano, voice, electronics, and choral collaboration, aims to produce a body of work that challenges hierarchies of meaning and authorship in music. It positions gossip not as frivolous or destructive but as a feminist, communal, and deconstructive force, offering new ways to engage with music-making.

Research Supervisors: Professor Jonathan Clark, Dr Tom Challenger, Dr Hans Koller

Research Title: The Rhythmic Language of Black British Music: A system for creative practice in Black British Music, through the lens of the improvisational rhythmic language of American Jazz and Rhythmic traditions of Djembe drum troupes of the Mandinka and Ewe People

Research Topic Outline: The objective of this research is to develop a rhythmic system for Black British Music. Investigating rhythms from UK Garage, Grime, Jungle, Drum and Bass and Broken Beat. In performance these genres rely on interaction between performers – whether that is between a live band or between vocalists and a DJ. This differs from Jazz and West African music, which need to consider group dynamic and interaction in all elements of creative practice. All three genres have textural similarities, use rhythm as an improvisational function and are of aural traditions. American Jazz and West African djembe music have well-defined rhythmic codes and conventions for performance and composition; this practice-based study aims to provide a deeper understanding of Black British Music.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Dance

Research Supervisors:

Professor Jonathan Clark

Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell

Research Title:

Towards the Periphery of Consciousness

Research Topic Outline:

This Practice as Research project, as a creative endeavour in dance-making, is carried out in a cyclical model of rigorous theoretical investigation and processual collaborative studio-based movement experiments. Informed by the compatibility between the discipline of Authentic Movement and phenomenological methodologies, the primary focus of the study falls on the psychophysical processes recognised as occurring in the periphery of consciousness. The periphery of consciousness refers to an area within a person’s experience of which they are not directly aware. The psychophysical processes there are identified as not-conscious or not-yet-conscious. Through a phenomenological examination of the experiences of those involved in the movement experiments, the research suggests the development of a distinctive creative methodology for dance-making, based on phases of triggering, manifesting and creatively engaging with processes that have emerged in the periphery of consciousness.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Sam Hayden

Dr Bruno Heinen

Dr Hans Koller

Research Title:

The Confluence of Melody, Rhythm and Harmony: Investigating Circular and Linear concepts within large scale composition.

Research Topic Outline:

This research investigates the relationship between linearity, rhythm, space and polyphony, and presents a re-imagining of the music of Thelonious Monk within the context of Central African counterpoint. The research will present transcription and analysis of relevant repertoire, cross-disciplinary studies and collaborative work, a portfolio of recorded compositions and improvisations and a substantial commentary, detailing the compositional processes, and the theoretical underpinning of the works.

Research Pathway:

PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors:

Professor Dominic Murcott

Dr Tom Challenger

Dr Hans Koller

Research Title:

Un/intentional improvisational-compositional realisations exploring cognitive sources

Research Topic Outline:

This thesis examines how unintended happenings in composed and performed music serve as creative fodder for subsequent composed and improvised materials. ‘Unintended happenings’ emerge from varying awarenesses of intentionality, drawing from a background in and memories of contemporary classical music, where intention and control were highly salient. This work reaches towards a new, re-examined, approach to creative music-making. It spans from a solo practice through the realm of social music-making, involving the audience in unusual and nontraditional ways. Methodologies include graphic scores, structured improvisation, and individual instrumental practice.

Generative works are focused on a more specific means of multi-agent collaboration, drawing from cognitive psychological and philosophical literature. Agents combine and restructure in unusual ways to create a heightened collective ‘knowing.’ Agents can be performers, composer(s), instruments, the score, the room, the setting, interpreters, the audience, and others. Information extends between agents and structures (the relations between agents, e.g. the traditional composer-performer hierarchy) are morphed. Resultant works demand their shared contribution towards an outcome unavailable through traditional composer-improviser-performer-instrument relations.

PhD Creative Practice: Music (Award: July 2025)

Research Pathway: PhD Creative Practice: Music

Research Supervisors: Professor Jonathan Clark, Dr Aleks Szram

 Research Title: Music, dance and metaphor: How can body movements and metaphors contribute to music interpretation?

Research Topic Outline: This research was inspired by narrative ballets that are choreographed on existing classical music. It emerged from the need to be more effective with the use of language in teaching, because music is abstract and its perception is built around the use of metaphors and our imagination. Sadly, after years of training and getting used to this mindset, it is easy for us to forget that the ways we are used to describe or perceive music are all imagined, and this will cause miscommunication and confusion in teaching. This thesis aims to find a way in which individuals will be able to build their own metaphors suitable to their own or their students’ cognitive capability.

PhD Creative Practice: Music (Award: November 2024)

Research Supervisors: Professor Sam Hayden, Dr Paul Newland, Professor Jonathan Clark

Research Title: Here Comes Everybody: Strategies for a transdisciplinary creative practice

Research Topic Outline: This practice-as-research project explores ideas of ontological ambiguity, disruption and transformation through sonic materiality and conceptualisation.

Building on a consideration of drone as an ontologically ambiguous phenomenon that can present as both object and event, and an articulation of a material-conceptual sonic continuum, I describe a heterogeneous, transdisciplinary praxis in which diverse creative methods combine in a state of entanglement, destabilisation and reconfiguration of ontological identity and interrelationships.

I discuss these processes in terms of atmospheres (Böhme, 2018), hyperobjects (Morton, 2013) technique as embodied knowledge (Spatz, 2015), and interrelations between and agencies of human and nonhuman bodies (Bennett, 2010; Ihde, 2009; Barad, 2007). I characterise this approach as rooted in an aesthetic of multiplicity (Stone, 2020), magpie methodology (Carter, 2013), unknowing-in-doing (Challenger, 2022), and wayfaring (Ingold, 2011).

In this praxis personal embodied knowledge is deployed not as an agent of self-valorisation, but as a commons through which collaborative artists may support each other to extend their practice beyond the boundaries of their own expertise and experience. I propose this approach as having a wider societal implication in the cause of ‘being ecological’ (Morton, 2017), and suggest the term “Interflow” to describe this mode of transdisciplinary praxis.

PhD Creative Practice: Dance (Award: October 2024)

Research Supervisors: Professor Jonathan Clark, Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell

Research Title: Vocalic Somatics: Feedback Loops, Felt Meaning and Novel Practice as Research Methods

Research Topic Outline: This thesis investigates Eugene Gendlin’s concept of the ‘felt sense’, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy on music, and Daniel Stern’s concept of ‘vitality affects’ via Practice as Research. The practice is informed by principles of somatic practices from Skinner Releasing Technique, Authentic Movement and somatic voice studies. Set in a performative environment, the artistic praxis called somatic vocalics, brings together two strands: the symbol-and-mark-making strand and the sounding-and-moving strand. How mark-making and sounding-and-moving affect each other is explored and analysed in the mapped and the experiential in-between. The mapped and the experiential in-between are conceptualised as places and experiences, for which words are not satisfactory, resulting in other forms of articulation coming together under the notion of the in-between. These other forms of expression are studied to describe the experience of the vocalic self, which has communalities with the releasing process proposed in Skinner Releasing technique.

The three-year-long artistic research project that informs this thesis is concerned with the concept and practice of looping phenomena in somatic sounding-and-moving practices. By investigating feedback loops within the research practice, it aims to create a new paradigm for knowledge production within artistic environments and in particular for somatic based research projects. At the core of this project is the development of a new Practice as Research (PaR) methodology with looping phenomena as its main modality. Therefore, looping phenomena is the subject and simultaneously the methodology of this project. The looping phenomenon as subject is coined in this project the voca-moebius phenomenon. Investigated are kinaesthetic and sonic depth factors of the lived experience of the vocalic self in performance and practice which are underpinned by experiential feedback loops.

The looping phenomena as methodology termed moebius-like feedback system led to novel emergent forms which are called heuristic diagrams that are suggestive of a somatic based research process. The heuristic diagrams resemble felt states of the vocalic self and are propelled by feedback loops. Examples of heuristic diagrams are live-mapping, somatic annotating, pre-semantic mapping and heuristic diagrams for analysis. Via their shared temporal paradigm of feedback loops, they offer a practice-based solution to the 16 ephemerality of somatic disciplines and thusly extend the traditional Practice as Research model proposed by Robin Nelson. The value of sharing the heuristic diagrams is, to demonstrate that this method itself generates performative outcomes that would not emerge otherwise. Thus, this PhD thesis proposes that heuristic diagrams can be adapted by practitioners within the field and play a larger role in descriptiveness and analysis to become artistic tools to overcome temporal challenges in Practice as Research. It further claims that feedback loops are central experiential models that clarify what Gendlin means by the ‘felt sense’. This finding suggests that this artistic project reveals knowledge that is applicable to other fields of study such as phenomenology and cognitive scientific research.

PhD Creative Practice: Music (Award: May 2024)

Research Supervisors: Professor Sophie Fuller, Dr Guy Harries

Research Title: Multiple Faces of a Jewish Siren: Gender, Otherness, Voice and Silencing in Performance Practice

Research Topic Outline: The controversial Talmudic phrase “A Woman’s Voice is Nakedness” serves as the focal point of this doctoral thesis, highlighting its role in banning female singing in public within Jewish-Orthodox society. Rooted in a fear of temptation, this prohibition has historically marginalised women from public performances as singers, actors, and lecturers. With the rise of ultra-religious parties in Israel and their increasing influence, there’s a concerning trend towards minimal representation for women and a more misogynistic climate, potentially extending this prohibition beyond religious circles to impact secular Israeli society.

In this practice-based research, I use my heritage as an Israeli-born Jewish woman as the lens through which I observe this phenomenon and its alarming consequences. Conducted in the UK rather than Israel, this autoethnographic approach offers a more impartial viewpoint, allowing for candid reflection.

Using Practice as Research methodology, I navigate my roles as a musician and visual artist by curating interdisciplinary cabarets, concerts, exhibitions, and digital art. Blurring the lines between classical music recitals and art exhibitions, I aim to challenge stereotypes surrounding the female voice, question gender boundaries, amplify the stories of silenced or marginalised female characters, and reclaim classical music traditionally performed by men.

In the commentary chapter of my thesis, I explore the ideas behind my artistic output and reveal the creative process, which led to the creation of music videos using bodypainting. By painting on myself, I transform into characters from operas, poems, and plays, telling their stories through colour, sound, digital art, and movement.

Cultivating my personal variation of Gesamtkunstwerk has empowered me to find a stronger and unapologetic voice, enabling me to un-silence or ‘revoice’ my message and artistic vision.