PhD celebrations Marina Liontou-Mochament: 'Metric Improvisation & Tools for Composition in Contemporary Modal Music'
You are cordially invited to the public defence by Marina Liontou-Mochament of the research project entitled ‘Expanded inspiration: metric improvisation and compositional tools in contemporary modal music’.
On October 18 at 11h15, Marina Liontou-Mochament will defend her dissertation in the Academy Building of Leiden University. The defence will be preceded by a concert by the candidate on October 17 at 19h30 in the Sijthoff Cultuurzaal, Leiden. The ceremony will be in English.
Marina Liontou-Mochament's doctoral research investigates how metric improvisation practice can enhance inspiration in improvisation and creation of composed works. By employing a variety of methodological tools (intensive listening to recordings and videos of live and studio performances, music transcription and analysis, ethnographic research (interviews), participatory observation, improvising and composing), and by focusing on the work of carefully chosen figures (Marko Melkon, Udi Hrant, John Berberian, Ara Dinkjian, Tamer Pınarbaşı and Kyriakos Tapakis), this research proposes ways of enriching melodic and rhythmic vocabulary, and substantially developing skills in structuring metric improvisations and composed works.
*There is a PhD Defence Livestream available for those who cannot attend the ceremony.
Public Concert
The performance by Marina Liontou-Mochament (oud) and Asineth Fotini Kokkala (kanun) will present improvised and pre-composed music, direct outcomes of Liontou-Mochamen's work in metric improvisation. By employing rhythmic tools suggested by the artists in their performances, the works propose an artistic meta-comment on the research. They range from ‘traditional’ style to contemporary modal music style, and seen in retrospect, they constitute Liontou-Mochament's artistic response to the route of the oud from the early post-Ottoman era to the 21st century.
