Public seminar: Matthew Jarvis, Electra Perivolaris, Emmanuel Sowicz, and Jessie Edgar
Schedule
Thu, 18 Jun, 2026 at 03:00 pm
UTC+01:00Location
Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities | Oxford, EN
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'What does modern Dominican chant have to do with its medieval origins?'Abstract
The Dominican Order, founded in the thirteenth century, inherited high medieval forms of Gregorian chant and moulded these to suit its unified liturgical and organisational structures, to undergird an international preaching mission. Friars needed to sing the same things in the same way, especially when gathering annually at a General Chapter. But while we have the rules of Dominican chant as codified in the 1250s by Humbert, the fifth Master of the Order, do these provide practical access to how the chant was sung? How do Humbert’s rules correspond to later Dominican books, right up to the twentieth century? Tracing tones (melodic patterns) across the centuries is one thing; interpreting the rhythm of the chant is quite another. In this presentation, I will share some initial results and ongoing questions.
'Dialogues, Encounters, and Entanglements: Developing a compositional practice which reimagines and examines relationships between humans and nature'
Abstract
This paper outlines my artistic research into composition as a means of exploring human–nature interconnection. Drawing on eco-musicology, anthropology, and cultural geography, I critique anthropocentric perspectives and pastoral traditions, proposing a “post-pastoral” approach that embraces ecological complexity and tension. Through composition and community-based practice, I investigate how music can express interwoven relationships between human and more-than-human worlds. The research emphasises listening as an immersive, embodied practice and foregrounds sustainable, participatory creativity. It positions composition as a collaborative ecological process that fosters empathy, challenges binary thinking, and highlights the interconnectedness of all life.
'Constructing Chamberhood | The Guitar Quartet and the Making of a Tradition'
Abstract
What does it mean for an instrument to belong to a chamber music tradition? The classical guitar has long participated in collaborative music-making, notably within nineteenth-century salon and domestic ensemble practice. Despite this, it has remained marginal to broader chamber narratives. This paper argues that, in response, musical arrangement has been used to retrospectively construct chamberhood, allowing guitarists to claim a new belonging to chamber traditions from which they found themselves previously excluded.
Guitar quartets, in particular, frequently adapt music associated with canonical composers and genres, at once expanding their repertoire and building identity within broader chamber narratives. Drawing on arrangements of Brahms, Debussy, and Glinka, I suggest how chamberhood is assembled through arrangement, repertoire emulation, and ensemble design – grounded in the use of four identical instruments in equal conditions. Importantly, these efforts often take place in a post-canonical context, where such repertoires are approached under contemporary conditions, rather than as untouchable monuments.
Borrowing Stephen Goss’s notion of retrotopia, which warns of backwards-facing cultural pressures, I argue that guitar quartet arrangements do not merely constitute nostalgic retreat or conservative emulation of established chamber formations. Rather, they often redirect retrotopian impulses, mobilising canonical repertoire as sites of ensemble experimentation and technical innovation. Recent innovations in guitar ensemble technique – including forms of distributed virtuosity – are enabling quartets to adopt increasingly complex repertoires, transforming arrangement into a creative laboratory that yields new ways of reconciling past and present.
Understanding chamberhood as constructed reframes how marginalised instruments might negotiate their repertoires, perceived legitimacy, and professional viability. The guitar quartet thus offers a case study in rethinking chamber music traditions beyond the lineage of stable formations and canonical genres.
'The Singer as Listener: own-voice perception through age-related hearing loss'
Abstract
It has been documented that participation in choral singing can benefit aspects of the aging auditory system and that many people in the age range pertinent to age-related hearing loss (ARHL) participate in choral singing. But it has not been documented how one's perception of their hearing loss affects the enjoyment of and participation in singing for people who have been singing for a majority of their lives. This talk theorizes how singers are simultaneous listeners; emphasizing that a singer's listening during performance can be mediated both by their immediate environment and by their metacognitive awareness of their own voice. Data will be presented about a group of 26 experienced amateur choral singers with age-related hearing loss, triangulating hearing tests, singing tasks, interviews and surveys.
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Where is it happening?
Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, The Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities Radcliffe Observatory Quarter Woodstock Road,Oxford, Oxfordshire, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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