Søren Møller Sørensen

Kort præsentation

Curriculum vitae

Søren Møller Sørensen. Musicologist, Associate Professor, PhD.

Department of Art and Cultural Studies.

Employed at UCPH since 1989

Year of PhD graduation:  1992

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.

Søren Møller Sørensen, born in Birkerød 1955

Address: Allikebakken 7, Kagerup, DK-3200 Helsinge, [email protected]

Education and academic positions:

1987 master in musicology from University of Copenhagen

1988-1992 research fellow at University of Copenhagen

1992 PhD in musicology from University of Copenhagen

1992 research assistant at Department for Musicology, University of Copenhagen

1993 teacher at Kunsthøjskolen I Holbæk

1993-1997 assistant professor at Department for Musicology, University of Copenhagen

1998- associate professor at Department for Musicology, University of
Copenhagen

2009-2012 studies in Arabic at University of Copenhagen

Management and organization experience:

1999-2002 leader of studies [studieleder] at Department for Musicology, University of
Copenhagen

2008-2012 leader of research [afdelingsforskningsleder]: Section for musicology, IKK,
University of Copenhagen

2009- leader of the special focus area [satsningsområdeleder]for historical studies at
Department for Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

2013- chairman of studies board [fagudvalgsformand] section for Musicology, IKK,
KU

Organization of international conferences, colloquia and seminars;

“Three Seminars on Contemporary Music” as part of International Society for
Contemporary Music’s World Music (1996) ; “Description and Interpretation”( 2000);
“Music. Concept, writing and performance( 2002); “Performativity: a paradigm for the
studies of art and culture” (2004); “Sound Art – Auditory Cultures” (2007)

Research training, PhD-supervision:

PhD-school for Cultural Studies and the Arts (KLIK), KU, Board member (2003-2010);
PhD-coordinator, Department of Musicology, KU (2005-2011); associated
Internationales Graduiertenkolleg Interart (Freie Universitat Berlin)

Contributions to PhD-seminars in Denmark, Norway and Germany

Supervisor of five PhD-projects

Editorial work:

Editor of Danish Musicology Online.

Member of editorial boards for the journals Dansk Musiktidsskrift (1990-2000);
Positionen (Berlin) (1996-2001); Svensk Tidskrift för Musikforskning (1996-2008);
Musik og Forskning (2002-2007); Danish Yearbook of Musicology; Seismograf/DMT.

Recent scholarships:

Three month research residency at the Danish Institute in Damascus; Scholarship from
the Institute (2010)

Scholarship from the Danish Institute in Damascus for music research in Cairo (2013)

Kort præsentation

Mine forskningskompetencer afspejler min bevægelse gennem forskellige stofområder siden mine første videnskabelige ansættelser i 1980’erne.

    Det begyndte med en interesse for de filosofiske og musikæstetiske spørgsmål, som datidens musikalske modernisme og avantgarde satte på dagsordenen herunder især diskussionen om det musikalske værkbegreb. Jeg var meget inspireret af den tyske musikforsker Carl Dahlhaus og hans form for dialog med og tilstedeværelse i det tyske Ny Musik-miljø og hans evne til at forbinde historiske undersøgelser med aktuelle problemstillinger.

   Det førte til en specialisering i skandinavisk og tysk musikalsk modernisme og avantgarde, som jeg dyrkede med en fortsat interesse for de æstetisk-teoretiske grundlagsproblemer, som den ny kunsts praksis og diskurs satte på dagordenen. Her kom begrebet ’performativitet’ til at spille en vigtig rolle. Og interessen for det det performative, som udfoldede sig i dialog med miljøet omkring den tyske teatervidenskabskvinde Erika Fischer-Lichte, førte videre til en skærpet interesse for musikkens materialitet. Det gav anledning til læsninger af meget forskelligartede historiske kilder til europæisk musikkulturs forhandlinger omkring musikkens fysiske forudsætninger: traktater om stemning og temperatur, lærebøger og teori om instrumentation, filosofiske og litterære tekster om klangnaturens gåder osv.

   Min interesse for de æstetiske og teoretisk grundlagsspørgsmål var og er forbundet med interessen for den studerede musiks konkrete institutionelle udfoldelsesbetingelser, og dette aspekt har fået yderligere vægt i forbindelse med mit senest udviklede forskningsområde.  Jeg har i de senere år beskæftiget mig en del med aktuel musikkultur i den arabiske verden. Lige nu fokuserer jeg på Cairo og på den del det aktuelle officielle ægyptiske musikliv, der udvikler sig i affirmativ eller kritisk dialog med ṭarab-kulturen. Dette arbejde er drevet dels af ønsket om at forstå denne musikforms forudsætninger i nyere ægyptisk musik- og litteraturhistorie (det er primært vokalmusik), dels af ønsket om at kende til dens aktuelle reception og politiske brug.

Aktuel forskning

A work on 1700-Century discussions on tuning and temperament has been published recently. It is the result of a very nice cooperation with the Swiss-based research netwerk "Stimmungen der Aufklärung". The article is written in German and it appeared in the research network's anthology.

The article "Mahmud Darwish and Marcil Khalifa. Art and Commitment" is now published in Danish Yearbook of Musicology.

My work on a long interview with the Syrian composer Nouri Iskander is concluded. The interview was done in Arabic last summer in Ørebro in Sweden. In the interview Nouri Iskander gives amply information about his musical and cultural background, his view on music history of his country and region and on his own music and its aesthetics. It was published recently.

The Swedish STM has been so kind to ask me for a review of my Swedish colleague Erik Wallrup's book "Being Musically Attuned". This review was published recently.

My next major article on Middle Eastern music and culture - after articles on Mahmud Darwish and Marcil Khalifa and on Nasir Shamma - will be on a neo-classical qasida by Ahmad Shawqi 'Nahj al-Burda' (1910), Riad al-Sunbati's music to this poem, and Umm about Kulthum's rendering of it (1946). Among the questions that I will ask this rich material are about the importance of a religious poem like this in a basically secular art sphere and the significance and particular traits of the neo-classical character of the poem. Im am still working on this, now including also the qasida al-Burda by Imam al-Busri, that Shawqi's qasisa is emulating and still an other emultaion of this poem, written by Tamim al-Barghthi in 2010.

A chapter on contemporary muisc and sound art in Cairo is accepted by the editors on a Bloomsbury handbook on sound art.   

I am in charge of a pilot project concerning a historical dictionary of Arabic music terminology   

I am still working on an article on aspects of philosophy of nature in twentieth-century contemporary music discourses.   

The Danish Institute in Damascus has granted me funds for a project concerning musicians in Denmark with backgrounds in Middle Eastern music cultures. The project includes a concert series, talks and interviews resident musicians and guests from the Middle East that will be documented in video documentaries and a scholarly article. The project's overall aim is to broaden our knowlegde of the diversity of music practices in the modern Middle East.   

Primære forskningsområder

Contemporary music and and sound art

History of music aethetics and philophies of sounds and senses

Music in the Middle East