Research

My work explores musical performance as a creative, social and embodied practice, investigating how music is shaped across changing historical, artistic and technological contexts. Building on historically informed performance, it brings together inquiry into the past, interdisciplinary collaboration and emerging technologies to open up new artistic possibilities for music-making.

A key strand of my research examines the hyper-theatrical world of late-Renaissance Italian courts, investigating how social codes and ideals of ‘everyday performances’ shaped on-stage music performances, the role of simulation and dissimulation, and the performance aesthetics of early operas. This remains an active area of inquiry while also informing a broader programme that brings historical perspectives into dialogue with contemporary artistic practice.

Across this body of work, performance functions as a way of thinking, making and discovering. Recent outputs range from new compositions inspired by early modern repertoire to interdisciplinary collaborations with dancers and creative technologists, bringing together improvisation, embodiment and electroacoustic performance. Examples include Observations of Fiery Sparks and Hidden Paths.

More recently, these questions have extended into human-AI musical collaboration, where I explore AI as a creative partner in live performance. Current research investigates performer-AI interaction, musical responsiveness and shared musical decision-making, while laying the foundations for future collaborations exploring how human and artificial performers can create new musical works together. An initial exploration of these ideas can be found in Exploring a LOERIC Performance with AI: A Somabotics Collaboration.