Søren Møller Sørensen

Søren Møller Sørensen

Emeritus

Presentation and research foci:

1: Contemporary music and sound art - particularly in Scandinavia and Germany.

This was my point of departure in the 1980’s and I studied it with a focus on philosophical and aesthetical issues that surface in the discourses of musical modernism and avant-garde, so for instance in my PhD thesis on the concept of the musical artwork. Later the concept of performativity became of pivotal importance and led me to my second research focus:

2: History of music theory, philosophy of sound and senses.

My research in this field is motivated by an interest in the materiality of sound and involves critical readings of a broad range of sources pertaining to the histories of music theory, tuning and temperament, instruments and instrumentation.

3: Contemporary Arabic music culture

My research interest in philosophical and theoretical discourses on music was always combined with an interest in the social and institutional framings of the music in question, and this aspect is at the fore in my most recent research area. I am currently working intensively on contemporary music scenes in Arabic speaking Middle East countries. At the moment I focus primarily on Egypt and on current artistic phenomena that develop in critical or affirmative dialog with ‘classical’ Arabic music. This work is motivated by a desire to understand this music’s basis in the Arabic music and literary history (it is mostly vocal music) as well as its present reception and political implications.

 

 

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