Jussi Reijonen
- Part-time teacher, Global music, Sibelius Academy
- jussi.reijonen@uniarts.fi
Publications in the research database (5)
Introduction
TRANSIENT: Contrapuntal Aesthetic Value Systems in Transcultural Composition, Improvisation and Performance
This interdisciplinary practice-based research (Candy 2006) aims to create methodologies for the composition, improvisation and performance of musical forms that source musical elements from diverse musical aesthetic value systems (Reijonen in press), conceptualized in this context as dynamic mutable information systems or bounded but permeable fields (Kramer 2019) which are governed by and reflect internal hierarchies of aesthetic values. By questioning representational aesthetic dichotomies while examining both the challenges and creative potential of negotiating and integrating aesthetically diverse perspectives, the research seeks to stimulate and innovate new discoveries of musical expression, seeking forms perhaps fully representational only of themselves.
My work is conducted from the perspective of composer, improviser and musician whose cultural hybridity (Bhabha 2012; Croucher and Kramer 2017) is a reflection of my formative life phases in northern Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman, Lebanon and the United States. Through a resultant evolving creative praxis that does not neatly fit into explicitly defined categories of aesthetic representation, I seek a musical corollary of this hybridity by examining an intersection of cultural fusion theory (Kramer 2019), theory of musical narrative (Almén 2008; Meelberg 2006; Micznik 2001; Reyland 2013), theory of musical semiotics (Tarasti 1994), acoustemology (Feld 2015), affective memory and applied worlding (Yates 2001; Herman 2017). As composer, improviser and performer exploring the creation of musical form, I apply this theoretical-conceptual framework to the recontextualization of musical elements and phenomena related to aesthetic practices from my autobiographical environments: Levantine and khaliji Arabic art and folk music, Zanzibari taarab, American jazz, and European and North American art and popular music.
My research output will consist of three artistic components presenting new music in hybrid album/video/concert format made available to the public; two peer-reviewed articles analyzing uncovered musical-aesthetic phenomena and developed compositional/improvisational strategies; and a summary thesis aiming to re-examine notions of aesthetic representation and provide methodological tools for composers, improvisers, and/or performers drawing from, or liminally positioned between, multiple diverse aesthetic value systems.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. If a contemporary composer or improviser’s praxis connects with and seeks to integrate multiple sources from aesthetically diverse musical traditions from around the world, how can one navigate the varying degrees of convergence and divergence between them?
2. How can one weave a whole with desired degrees of coherence while integrating musical materials from sources that have diverse aesthetic notions of unity, structure and form?
3. What new semantic and syntactic connotations and extramusical meanings arise as a result, and how can these insights prompt the creation of new transcultural musical forms as new information systems?
4. Beyond the aesthetic value systems examined in this study – namely, microtonal Arabic maqamat and 12-tone equal temperament (12TET); khaliji-, hip hop- and jazz-influenced rhythmic syntax; polyphony influenced by European and North American art and popular music and jazz; Arabic heterophony; and rock-, hip hop- and jazz-influenced cyclical ostinati –, what more generally applicable insight can be extracted to contribute to research and education in the field that isn’t conditional on the interaction of these specific aesthetic traditions?
KEYWORDS
transculturality, musical form, counterpoint, aesthetic value systems, musical narrative, affective memory, worlding
SUPERVISORY TEAM
Dr. Kristiina Ilmonen (chair), Professor of Folk Music, Sibelius Academy;
Dr. Lauri Suurpää, Professor of Music Theory, Sibelius Academy;
Dr. Sergio Castrillón Arcila, Lecturer of Global Music, Sibelius Academy
SPECIALIST ADVISORS
Dr. Eero Tarasti, University of Helsinki;
Dr. Katarina Miljkovic, New England Conservatory;
Dr. Nima Janmohammadi, New England Conservatory;
Dr. Paolo S.H. Favéro, University of Antwerp;
Dr. Nizar Rohana, University of Amsterdam;
Simon Shaheen, M.M., Berklee College of Music;
Ahmad al-Khatib, M.A., University of Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama
COLLABORATING MUSICIANS
Jason Palmer (USA); Hermon Mehari (USA); Robin Eubanks (USA); Bulut Gülen (Turkey); Layth Sidiq (Jordan/Iraq); Naseem Alatrash (Palestine); Utar Artun (Turkey); Maxim Lubarsky (Ukraine); Kyle Miles (USA); Keita Ogawa (Japan); Vancil Cooper (USA); Zach Mullings (USA); others to be included as research progresses