Research Interests
My research weaves together interdisciplinary threads from music performance and critical studies, systematic musicology, ubiquitous music, ethnography, semiotics, 4E cognition and Science and Technology Studies. In addition to producing traditional prose publications, my research also shapes my artistic production through the aesthetic-epistemic practice of Artistic Research.
Gesture and the Ecology of Musicking
Research into gesture as the catalyst for the dynamic networking of cognitive and social dimensions fundamental to music performance, listening and discourse. My current deep-gesture research connects empirical studies with new theoretical frameworks drawn from the fields of Ecological Psychology and Actor Network Theory, uniting topics in kinesthetics, cognition, semiotics and ethnomusicology toward a comprehensive and critically-situated, transdisciplinary view of the ecology of musicking.
Hyper-instruments and Augmented Acoustic Music in the 21st-Century
Theoretical and artistic research into how technology can augment affordances for purely acoustic music making. Widely credited with coining the term, “hyperorgan,” my current projects include Global Hyperorgan, a platform for real-time intercontinental collaborative acoustic music making, for which I received a Fulbright Global Scholar Award, and Hypermusical Playground, an interactive ensemble of acoustic instruments for children, amateur musicians and persons with mobility impairments to engage in creative musical play through diverse musical styles, both in-person and across geographic distances.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Global Hyperorgan: a Platform for Telematic Musicking and Research.” with Robert Ek, Stefan Östersjö, Matthias Petersson, and Federico Visi. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), Shanghai. 2021
"Ecologies of Practice in Musical Performance." MUSICultures, Vol. 45/1-2, 2018
“Keyboard Psychohaptics: a Nexus of Multidisciplinary Research into Kinesthetics, Gesture, and Expression.” Keyboard Perspectives, Vol. 6, 2013
Research Reports and other Articles
Three article series: “Hyperorgan: Reinventing the Wondrous Machine”, “Hyperorgan: Fostering New Organ Communities”, and “Hyperorgan: Cultivating New Organ Art.” The American Organist, April-June 2024
"Hyperorgan Mediation Technology," Orgelpark Research Reports, Vol. 5/2, 2018
“A New Era for New Music: The Guild’s Newest Flagship Competition and its First Winning Composer, Claude Baker.” The American Organist, July 2015
"Recent Organ Design Innovations and the 21st-century 'Hyperorgan'." Doctoral Essay for the Eastman School of Music. Published on the Huygens-Fokker Foundation website. May 2011
“The Church of Greenland and the Inuit Organ Tradition.” The American Organist, January 2010
Conference Papers
“Exposing Analysis as Practice: Problematising the Embodied Musickal Through the Epistemic Turn.” SysMus23: 16th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology. University of Sheffield, UK (presented online). October 2023
“To Compose or Compost? Cultivating Keyboards in the Chthulucene.” Symposium: Sustaining Keyboards. Cornell University. September 2023
Keynote Address: “Instituting Hyperorgan: engendering a place for the organ in the new analog age,” Orgelpark International Symposium, Hyperorganic Movements. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. June 2023
“Inertial Discourse in the Sociality of Gesture: Prolegomenon to a Sono-Kinesthetic Ethnography.” 67th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (AMS/SMT/SEM). New Orleans, LA. November 2022
“Hyperorgans: Some Inconvenient Truths.” Orgelpark International Symposium: Organic Sounds: New Music Ecologies. June 2022
Keynote Address: “Hyperglobal Musicking and the end of ‘New Music’,” Global Hyperorgan: Liminal Musicking in the Hyperglobal. Online international symposium. June 2021
“Modularity and Shared Instrumentality in Telematic Hyperorgan Performance.” with Robert Ek, Stefan Östersjö, Matthias Petersson, and Federico Visi. 8th Music and/as Process Conference: Networked Collaborative Processes. Online international conference. June 2021
“The Global Hyperorgan and the Hyper-Global,” Physically Distant: Online Talks on Telematic Performance, GEMM))) Gesture Embodiment and Machines in Music, Luleå University of Technology, School of Music in Piteå, Sweden. June 2020
“Global Hyperorgan: New Frontiers for Intercontinental Acoustic Musicking,” Visiting Scholar seminar, Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media and Technology (CIRMMT), McGill University. March 2020
“Global Hyperorgan, Global Gesture,” Research symposium, GEMM))) Gesture Embodiment and Machines in Music, Luleå University of Technology, School of Music in Piteå, Sweden. February 2020
“The Inertial Discourse of Gesture in the Construction of Musical Practices.” Iowa Musicology Day. Cedar Falls, IA. April 2019
Keynote Address: “Hyperorgans: How Things Stand," Orgelpark Research Symposium
Glorious and Shocking Sounds. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. June 2017
“Reassembling the Musickal.” Iowa Musicology Conference, Kirkwood Community College. Cedar
Rapids, IA. April 2017
“Inertia and Gesture in Embodiments of Time," Making Time in Music. University of Oxford, UK. September 2016
“The Ecological Construction of Performance," Performance Studies Network Conference (PSN 2016). Bath Spa University, UK. July 2016
“Direct Action and the Primacy of Gesture in the Ecology of Performance," Porto International Conference on Musical Gesture as Creative Interface. Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal. March 2016
Keynote Address: “Hyperorgans and the Future of Acoustic Music," Orgelpark Research Symposium Bending Baroque. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. June 2015
“Psychohaptics and the Affordances of Musical Instruments: Toward an Ecological Theory of Performance.” 13th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC). Seoul, South Korea. August 2014
“Practical Applications and Implications of the Scientific Study of Organ Performance and Pedagogy.” Workshop for the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists. Boston, MA. June 2014
“Hyperorgan Technology, Augmented Reality, and the Triumph of Acoustic Music.” National Convention of the American Guild of Organists. Boston, MA. June 2014
"Rethinking Contemporary Organs," Orgelpark Research Symposium Electrifying Baroque. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. June 2014
"Affordances, Practice, Gesture and the Ecology of Performance." Iowa Musicology Conference. Cedar Falls, IA. April 2014
"Hyperorgan: Augmented Reality, Affordances, and the Ecology of the Wondrous Machine."
Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative Festival (EROI). Rochester, NY. September 2013
“Shifting Affordances: Contemporary Music and the Analog Mechanics of the Baroque Organ.”
American Baroque in the 21st Century: Old Meets New at the King of Instruments,
Cornell University. Ithaca, NY. September 2012
“Technology, Tradition, and the Analog Acoustic: New Synergies for 21st-Century Organ Building
in the Woehl Studio Acusticum Organ.” The Westfield Center 2012 conference. Houston, TX. April 2012
“From Hydraulis to Hyperorgan: the Pipe Organ, Technology, and the Quest for Maximal Agency.”
Harvard Graduate Music Forum, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA. February 2012
“Acoustic and Psychohaptics in a Pipe Organ reconstruction: Eastman’s Craighead-Saunders Organ.”
Biannual Conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. Rochester, NY. August 2011
“The Psychohaptics of Organ Performance: Toward the Comprehensive Characterization of the Organist.” Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative Festival (EROI). Rochester, NY. October 2009
“Haptic Technology for Organ Performance: Reimagining the Reciprocal Relationship between the Kinesthetic and Aural Domains.” Göteborg International Organ Academy (GOArt) Symposium. Göteborg, Sweden. August 2009