Research in focus: Stefan Sunandan Honisch

Name:

Stefan Sunandan Honisch

My pronouns:

He / Him / His

Title:

Sessional Lecturer and Honorary Research Associate

Faculty/Department/Unit:

Theatre and Film

Location:

Vancouver

Year I started working at UBC:

2019

Provide an overview of your research in 75 words or less:

My main research, a book project under contract with University of Michigan Press, explores musical virtuosity in public musical life, using a Critical Disability Studies framework to demonstrate the ways in which its prized status in concerts and competitions obscures the conceptual, aesthetic, and ethical vulnerability of its insistent claims to universality and transcendence.

What first motivated you (or motivates you) to conduct your research?

My research arises, in part, from my lived experience as a disabled pianist. I was recently invited to contribute chapters to two edited volumes that foreground musical experience from the performer's perspective.

Are there any research collaborators you'd like to acknowledge and why?

I thank Professor Adam Patrick Bell, Music Education, Western University for inviting me to join two of his SSHRC-funded projects, as Co-Applicant and Co-Director. I am grateful to St. John's College, and the Theatre and Film department for supporting my participation. I thank Dr. Katharina Clausius, University of Montreal, for sustained and sustaining collaboration, including a co-authored article in Theory & Event. I also gratefully acknowledge Diane Kolin, Founder and Director of Arts Ably.

Learn more:

Diane Kolin, PhD candidate at York University, and founder and director of Arts Ably, recently interviewed me for her podcast: https://www.artsably.com/episode-5-artsably-in-conversation-with-dr-stefan-sunandan-honisch/

Links to examples of my piano playing and other work: https://www.artsably.com/interview-resources-provided-by-dr-stefan-sunandan-honisch/