Keynote Speakers

João Carlos Martins occupies a unique place in the Brazilian musical scene, having been considered one of the greatest interpreters of Bach of the twentieth century by international criticism, from which he recorded the complete work for keyboard.

He was born in São Paulo on 1940 and began his piano studies at the age of eight with Professor José Kliass. At thirteen he began his career in Brazil and eighteen abroad.

His Carnegie Hall concerts, after her twenty-first year debut in a performance sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt, have always sold out.

His recordings have often been among the best-selling, and newspapers such as The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times have always devoted stories enthusiastic about his artistic personality. As a pianist, he was the only one to record J.S.Bach's masterpiece for keyboards, in a work recorded on 22 CDs, in 1998.

He left the stage definitively as a pianist in the year 2002 due to physical problems.

He is the only Brazilian musician who has had his life recorded by European filmmakers twice, the first film, Martin's Passion, directed by Irene Langman, already attended by more than one and a half million people in Europe and winner of several international festivals, and Rêverie by Belgian filmmakers Johan Kenivé and Tim Herman.

Twelve years ago he began his studies of regency. He performed successfully in London, Paris and Brussels as guest conductor, impressing on his performances the same dynamics he played as a pianist.

Thirteen years ago he founded Bachiana Filarmônica and developed a work with adolescents through his Bachiana Jovem. He idealized the Bachiana Foundation in 2006, whose theme is art and sustainability. In 2010 the orchestras were unified and form today the Bachiana Philharmonic SESI-SP.

Today, at the age of 79, he built a solid career with his orchestra, which was the first Brazilian orchestra to perform in January 2007 at Carnegie Hall, repeated in 2008.

João Carlos and his Bachiana returned to New York in 2009, 2010 and 2011, this time at Lincoln Center, once again taking the name of Brazil to international audiences.

In 2011, they performed at the Broward Center in Florida and returned to the Lincoln Center in New York, where they invited rhythm artists from the Vai-Vai samba school, showing the influence of African rhythms on the formation of Brazilian musical identity through works by Villa -Lobos, Guerra Peixe and Mateus Araujo. It was the first time in history that percussionists from a group played in these boxes.

In 2013 João Carlos Martins returned to New York, this time in front of The Saint Luke's Orchestra, in a memorable concert at the Metropolitan Museum, with repertoire entirely dedicated to J.S.Bach.

In the official seasons of the Bachiana Philharmonic, he developed countless actions of appreciation and democratization of concert music, as in 2013, in which each concert presented unpublished works by young Brazilian composers, he presented to Brazilian audiences young violinists of incredible talent Lucas Farias and Guido Sant'Anna, at the time with 12 and 9 years respectively, among others.

In its seasons, the Bachiana Philharmonic, which has already reached live about 14 million people, also counted on invited guests of international reputation, such as Pinchas Zukerman, Robert Levin, Amanda Forsyth and William Bennett.

Starting in 2014, LC Barreto along with Globo Filmes began the project of a feature film about the life of João Carlos Martins, which was completed in 2017. IN 2018 he beguns his most ambitious musical project - Orchestrating Brazil, which aims to form a thousand orchestras scattered in small Brazilian cities, surrounding it in the form of a heart. This project started in the State of São Paulo - Orquestrando São Paulo, and in just over two months already has 50 orchestras in cities with less than 30,000 inhabitants. Today he already have more than 200 in this project.

The pianist

"A man born to do great things at the piano"
Washington Post

"One of the most important pianists in the world ..."
The New York Times

"First there was Glenn Gould ... Now there's João Carlos Martins, a Brazilian pianist whose Life story can be even more fascinating."
New Yorker Magazine

"The most exciting modern Bach piano performer to emerge from Glenn Gould."
Boston Globe

The maestro

"Martins seems possessed, free, hypnotizing in a demonic way. Your interpretations are glowing. "
Le Figaro

Ubiratan Bizarro Costa is an industrial designer and design professor who during the day designs and develops in his design office, products aimed at the automotive industry, inclusive design, among others. The evening teaches technical and artistic drawing in the units of your drawing school.

He started working in printers, advertising agencies, and at night he took technical courses in architectural design, product design and style, 2D and 3D modeling in cad system, mechanical technician, fiberglass modeling, among others. Afterwards, he went on solo flights, setting up his own design office, initially creating logos, packaging design, technical catalogs, corporate visual identity projects, incentive campaigns, security campaigns for sipat weeks, etc., all for industries like Bendix, Allied Signal , Bosch brakes, Gevisa, PST electronic equipment, among others. Subsequently focused on product design creating automotive line cds players, concept cars, concept bikes, cabs for agricultural machines, kits for race cars for basic categories, etc., for companies such as Mitsubishi Motors, Elsys electronic equipment, Motocana, etc.
During these walks through the industries, he met a great friend and set up a workshop for creating Hot Rods cars, building chassis, bodies, etc. for kits of classic or sports cars of his own creation.
During this period, he also set up a drawing school where, over the years, he has tried to transfer the market experience in creation, art, drawing and design from the design office to the students of the school of artistic and technical drawing preparing them for the reality of the art market and design in general.

Researches a lot about concept product prototype technology, likes sports such as archery, auto racing, sailing. He has already given his ideas for product ideas even in Formula 1, which incredibly invited him to demonstrate his technical projects. So he entered the pits and backstage of F1 racing, exchanged ideas with the engineers, and was even "close" to the FIA boss. Of course, they did not build their device ideas, but that the current Halo looks like the PCP project that he created in 2009 and presented in 2012 to F1 engineers at the FIA headquarters in Paris looks like ...

He has also written technical articles on F1 cars for some Formula 1 websites, as well as maintaining his own F1 blog where he writes some articles on aerodynamic devices that current teams use in racing.

He currently creates research and development projects for products in the area of mobility and inclusive design in his design office, where he designs and builds exoskeleton prototypes, equipment for the physically challenged, compact electric vehicles for urban mobility, Extension gloves, initially for Maestro João Carlos Martins and that struggles to make its series production viable, making it available to many people in need, etc., all using MINIMALIST DESIGN, simple, practical, objective, direct and mainly of affordable cost to make life easier, especially for people with disabilities. Finally, Ubiratan, or Designer Bira to be more practical, when he is not inventing and assembling any of his strange prototypes.

Tomfoolery is a London based 26 year old writer, performance artist and filmmaker. Born in New Zealand to Welsh parents, Tom studied English Literature & Drama at the University of Manchester. During his studies, Tom co-founded Odds On Productions, working as a Producer on the feature film Hilda which became an official selection for the Raindance film festival 2019 and the Moscow Film Festival.

Since then Tomfoolery has been focusing on writing his own feature film, “Blaggers”, the story of a young poet and his manager-mate descending upon the streets of London with nothing but a gift of the gab. Whilst writing the film, Tom decided to try out his material under the Probably Tomfoolery brand. Picking up on a stint of politically focused poems written during his time at University, Tom has been performing live around the capital and creating online video content to pair with his poetry.

Tom’s mission from the beginning has been to present a message of hope, optimism and socially constructive and progressive ideas through his words.

Tom’s poem “The Great Realisation” has now been viewed over 60 million times across platforms and been transcribed into languages from every corner of the globe.

Roman Ruditsa is a Russian composer, music theorist, teacher of music theory subjects, pianist, harpsichordist, music critic and music software developer.

Mr. Ruditsa is an author of cantatas, chamber and orchestra music. The area of his composition interests connected with a research of harmony and counterpoint, with a modern continuation of Medieval, Renaissance and Classical music traditions. Roman Ruditsa is a member of the Russian Union of Composers.

He wrote a number of musicological works devoted to questions of musical analysis, harmony and counterpoint.

Piano and harpsichord repertoire includes music of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, Jean-Henri d'Anglebert and other representatives of the French harpsichord school, Cesar Franck, Franz Liszt, Mikhail Glinka, Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Mr. Ruditsa is also known for his music criticism articles in Russian journals.

In 2014, together with Andrey Bayadzhan, Roman Ruditsa invented the Musical Notation Keyboard and founded D Notation company, which aims to create a perfect digital note writing tool and develop mass learning of musical literacy.

Roman Ruditsa was born in 1972 in Tyumen, Russia. In 1995 he graduated from Saint Petersburg State Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (composition class of Sergei Slonimsky, piano and harpsichord class of Elena Seredinskaya, music theory class of Ekaterina Ruchievskaya). From 1995 till 1997 he had an assistantship in the composition class of Sergei Slonimsky, and from 1997 till 1998 had a PhD program in the musical analysis class of Dr. Ekaterina Ruchievskaya.

Dmitri Tymoczko was born in 1969 in Northampton, Massachusetts. He studied music and philosophy at Harvard University, and philosophy at Oxford University. He received his Ph.D in music composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a Professor of Music at Princeton, where he has taught composition and theory since 2002.

His book A Geometry of Music (Oxford) has been described as "a tour de force" (The Times Literary Supplement), a "monumental achievement" (Music Theory Online), and, potentially, a modern analogue to Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre (The Musical Times).

His compositions are polystylistic and mercurial, drawing on genres from the Renaissance to rock. His music has been commissioned and performed by groups including the Amernet Quartet, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, the Brentano Quartet, the Corigliano Quartet, Flexible Music, Gallicantus, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Illinois Modern Ensemble, Janus Trio, the Kitchener/Waterloo symphony, Network for New Music, Newspeak, Pacifica Quartet, Synergy Vocal Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion Quartet, and Ursula Oppens. Among his awards are a Guggenheim fellowship, a Rhodes Scholarship, the Leonard Bernstein fellowship from Tanglewood, a fewllowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the Block lecturship from the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

In addition to composing concert music, Dmitri enjoys playing rock and jazz and writing words. His articles have appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly, the Atlantic Monthly, Berfrois, Boston Review, Civilization, Integral, Journal of Music Theory, Lingua Franca, Music Analysis, Music Theory Online, Music Theory Spectrum, Science, Seed, and Transition. His article "The Geometry of Musical Chords" was the first music-theory article published in the 130-year history of Science magazine. He has been invited to speak to audiences of musicians, philosophers, cognitive scientists, mathematicians, physicists, and the general public; articles about his work have appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines, including Time, Nature, and Physics Today.

Prof. Dr. Dario Martinelli (1974), musicologist and semiotician, is Full Professor of History and Theory of Arts at Kaunas University of Technology, and is also affiliated to the University of Helsinki, as Adjunct Professor in Semiotics and Musicology, and to the University of Lapland, as Adjunct Professor in Methodologies of Semiotics and Communication Studies. He is also Editor-in-chief of the series “Numanities – Arts and Humanities in Progress“, published by Springer.

He graduated at Bologna University in 1999, under the supervision of Prof. Gino Stefani, and earned his PhD at Helsinki University in 2002, under the supervision of Prof. Eero Tarasti. He regards these two scholars as his most important academic mentors.

As of 2020, he has published thirteen monographs and ca. 150 among edited collections, studies and scientific articles. His most recent monographs include: What You See Is What You Hear (Springer, 2020), Give Peace a Chant (Springer, 2017), Basics of Animal Communication (CSP, 2017), Arts and Humanities in Progress (Springer 2016), Lights, Camera, Bark! (Technologija, 2014), Authenticity, Performance and Other Double-Edged Words (Acta Semiotica Fennica, 2011), A Critical Companion to Zoosemiotics (Springer, 2010). He also wrote a monograph of the “popular philosophy” type, entitled Lettera a un futuro animalista (Mursia, 2014), and translated in Lithuanian under the title Laiškai sūnui vegetarui (Kitos Knygos, 2017).

Besides his affiliations, he has been visiting professor in four academic institutions, and has been giving ca. eighty lecture courses in fourteen different academic institutions in Europe.

Dario is currently developing a new research path called “Numanities”, devoted to the rethinking of the role and paradigm of humanities in nowadays society.

He has been recipient of several prizes, including, in 2006, a knighthood from the Italian Republic for his contribution to Italian culture.

Angela Stoeger (University of Vienna) is a bioacoustician using communication as a tool to animal cognition, investigating sound production and perception, vocal learning and information coding in vocal signals.

Her main model species are elephants, highly social mammals that combine a capacity for vocal learning with complex cognitive skills. Angela significantly contributed to the field by demonstrating imitative capacities in both species (Nature 2005/Current Biology 2012).

Angela Stoeger is further interested in the potential evolutionary interconnection of vocal learning with other cognitive skills such as, for example, rhythmic entrainment. Vocal learning and rhythm, crucial for human speech and music, might share a common evolutionary origin, a hypothesis that can be empirically tested in living model species that have convergently evolved vocal learning (e.g. parrots), especially those possessing sound production mechanisms similar to humans (e.g., elephants).

In the recent years, she published in high impact scientific journals, received grants (1.310.802 € of third-party funding as PI), scientific awards and her research was reported in numerous popular scientific reports (more than 100 reports, radio and TV documentaries).

Agnieszka Roginska (B. Mus. McGill University ’96; M.Mus. NYU ’98; Ph.D. Northwestern University ’04) is a Professor of Music Technology and the Vice-Chair of the Music and Performing Arts Professions Department at New York University.

She conducts research in the simulation and applications of immersive and 3D audio including the capture, analysis and synthesis of auditory environments, auditory displays and applications in augmented acoustic sensing.

She is the author of numerous publications about the acoustics and psychoacoustics of immersive audio and auditory displays, and is the co-editor of the book titled "Immersive Sound: The Art and Science of Binaural and Multi-Channel Audio".

Agnieszka is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), and the President of the AES.

Stefan Koelsch is Professor of Biological Psychology and Music Psychology at the University of Bergen (Bergen, Norway). He has Masters degrees in Music, Psychology, and Sociology. Prof. Koelsch did his PhD and his Habilitation at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience (Leipzig, Germany), where he also led an Independent Junior Research Group “Neurocognition of Music”. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA), an RCUK fellow, honorary Hooker Professor at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada), professor for music psychology at the Freie Universität Berlin, and full professor for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience at Lancaster University.

His research interests include the neurocognition of music, neural correlates of emotion, music therapy, similarities and differences between music and language processing, neural correlates of cognition and action, as well as emotional personality and the unconscious mind. His publications are among the most cited articles in musicpsychology and the neurocognition of music.

Called for his “pianistic allure” (Gramophone), Canadian pianist Lucas Wong is earning a diversified career as a performer, teacher, and online musical resource developer.

He has performed in many prestigious venues across a dozen countries on four continents. His career highlights include multiple engagements at the Carnegie Hall, innovative recital programs like "Beyond 88" and the "Mostly Debussy" series, a complete performance of Des Knaben Wunderhorn at the Shanghai Conservatory, directorship of the complete Duparc melodies at Songfest in LA, and collaborations with American composers such as William Bolcom, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, and John Musto.

Wong's academic achievements include his Yale doctoral thesis "Perspectives on Claude Debussy’s Douze Études” and the article "Humour in Late Debussy: Multiple Perspectives on Douze Études" published on the Musical Times.

As an educator and administrator, Lucas Wong was a founding faculty member at the Soochow University School of Music (China), where he served as piano professor and coordinator for chamber music, collaborative piano, and staff accompanists.

He has been regularly invited to give masterclasses and adjudications in top institutions, festivals, and competitions.

Lucas Wong began his early training at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. He is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (B.Mus.) and Yale School of Music (M.M., M.M.A., D.M.A.).

For more information, visit www.lucaswongpiano.com, www.findbach.com, and www.ipait.ca.

Julie Ballantyne is known for her work in the areas of music teacher identities, social justice, music teacher education, and the social and psychological impacts of musical engagement. An Associate Professor in Music Education in the School of Music at the University of Queensland, Australia, she has won commendations and fellowships for her teaching, and also holds leadership positions with organizations such as the International Society for Music Education. Julie has published her own work in key journals and has co-edited a book Navigating Music and Sound Education.

Julie has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Research Studies in Music Education (SAGE) since 2018 and was also Chair of the International Society of Music Education (MISTEC) from 2016-2018. She has served on editorial boards for the International Journal of Music Education, Education Studies, Research Studies in Music Education and Psychology of Music, and as Secretary for the Asia-Pacific Society of Music Education Research.

Julie's research output is marked by over 45 refereed publications including a research monograph and an edited book, with most of her journal articles in top tier journals. She has presented at various international conferences both in Australia and overseas, and led an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Grant (known as Music Teachers Oz) that used online, collaborative case-based learning in music education courses across Australia.

Julie frequently addresses international audiences on her areas of research expertise, collaborates widely, and has examined theses from key institutions around the world. She enjoys teaching pre-service and in-service teachers at the Bachelor and Masters Level, as well as supervising several PhD students.

Konstantin Zenkin, born 1958, Moscow, Doctor of Art Research (1996), Professor of the Moscow P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, since 2009 – also Vice Rector for research activities.

Author of the books: «Chopin’s Piano Miniature» (1995), «Piano Miniature and Ways of Musical Romanticism» (1997; 2nd ed. - 2019), «Music – Eidos – Time. A.F. Losev and scope of contemporary discipline of music» (2015, in English transl. - 2018), the set of 5 books “Music in the Space of Culture” (with co-author Konstantin Zhabinsky) and more than 150 articles.

Participated in many (more than 300) musicological conferences in Russia, many of European countries, America, Asia and Africa, read lectures as invited professor in the universities of Philadelphia, Hong Kong, Leuven, Nur-Sultan, Cisinau etc. Chief-editor of the musicological magazines «Nauchny Vestnik Moskovskoy Konservatorii» (since 2010), “Music of Eurasia. Traditions and the Present” (since 2020).

A founder and vice president of the council of OTM (Society for Theory of Music in Russia). Also a pianist, takes part in the concerts as a soloist and in ensemble (Russia, China, Belorussia, Belgium, Austria etc.)

Tecumseh Fitch studies the evolution of cognition and communication in animals and man, focusing on the evolution of speech, music and language. He is interested in all aspects of pattern recognition and vocal communication in vertebrates, particularly the relation between vertebrate vocal communication and the evolution of human speech and music. He is a professor at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Life Sciences, where he is head of the Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology.

After receiving degrees in Biology and Medicine (BA) and Cognitive Science (PhD) at Brown University, Fitch took a one-year break to travel around the world on a mountain bike. During his post-doctoral years he took another one-year break to patent an invention (a sonification system for anesthesiologists, later purchased by Johnson & Johnson) and founded a start-up company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Following an NIH postdoctoral fellowship in Speech and Hearing Science at MIT and Harvard, Fitch became a lecturer at Harvard (in both Biology and Psychology). He moved to Europe in 2002, where he was a visiting researcher at the European Institute for Advanced Studies (Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin). He then occupied posts as a senior lecturer and then Reader at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, during which he also occupied a visiting Leibniz Professorship in Leipzig. Finally, he joined the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Vienna as a full Professor in June 2009, where he co-founded the Department of Cognitive Biology in 2010.

In addition to his scientific interests Fitch is an avid musician. He sings and plays guitar and percussion, and composes music in many styles. His most recent project involves setting poems of the great English poets to music, in a variety of popular music styles (from rock to salsa).

Ildar Khannanov earned his PhD and MA in music theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2003, with his dissertation “Russian methodology of music theory and analysis” under supervision of Pieter C. van den Toorn, Michael Beckerman, and Yuri Kholopov. In 1993, Khannanov has completed his study at aspirantura of Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory with his candidate dissertation “Non-verbal specificity of music,” under the supervision of Yuri Kholopov and Valentina Kholopova. Khannanov earned his undergraduate degree in music theory, Diplom of Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, in 1988. His studies prior to conservatory include the programs in piano, theory and composition at Ufa Specialized Music School (graduated in 1982). He studied philosophy with Jacques Derrida at University of California, Irvine from 1997-2001.

Khannanov is currently the Vice-Chair of Scientific Committee and one of the founders of the Russian Society for Theory of Music. He is also a member of the Organizing Committee of the European Music Analysis Conference. His other engagements include a work as an editor in the journal Music Scholarship/Problemy Muzykal’noi Nauki (2007-2013), as an ethnomusicologist at the Bashkirian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences (1988-1991) and as a church music director and organist at St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Annapolis.

Khannanov has been teaching core undergraduate theory sequence and a number of graduate seminars in theory of Russian music in the United States for the past fourteen years and has presented papers on topics of Russian music theory and analysis, theory of formal functions, philosophy, semiotics and methodology of harmony and aural skills at the national and international conferences. His publications include: Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff: Seven Musical-Theoretical Etudes (Kompozitor: Moscow, 2011), “A Watershed in Analytical Tradition: Valentina Kholopova’s Theory of Musical Content,” a chapter in L’Analyse musicale aujourd’hui, (Delatour: Paris, 2014), “Line, Surface and Speed: Nomadic Aspects of Melody,” a chapter in Sounding the Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and Philosophy and Theory of Music (Ashgate: London, 2010), articles on theory of formal functions, approaches to analysis, musical semiotics, music of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Dmitri Tiomkin in Vereiniging voor Musiektheorie, Goldbergstiftung, Acta Semiotica Fennica, Res musica, Theoreia, Film Music Journal and Musical Academy Quarterly, as well as philosophical studies in Sinij Divan and Logos.

Eduardo R. Miranda is a composer and Professor in Computer Music at the University of Plymouth, UK, where he is director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR). His distinctive music is informed by his unique background as a classically trained composer and Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientist with an early involvement in electroacoustic and avant-garde pop music. Miranda is known for his ground-breaking research in brain-computer music interfacing technology. And he is a pioneer in the fields of biological and quantum computing for music.

In 2019, his composition Biocomputer Rhythms, for piano, percussion and interactive biocomputer won two Honorary Mentions at Ars Electronica in Austria: Prix Ars Electronica for Artificial Intelligence & Life Arts and STARTS Prize, which is the grand prize of the European Commission for projects integrating science and technology.

Miranda’s music, which includes pieces for symphonic orchestras, chamber groups and solo instruments, with and without live electronics, has been played by renowned ensembles such as BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Singers. In addition to concert music, he has composed for theatre and contemporary dance. The inside story of his acclaimed choral symphony, Sound to Sea, is revealed in the book Thinking Music: The inner workings of a composer’s mind, published by University of Plymouth Press.

Mario Baroni was full professor, and former director, in the Department of Music of the University of Bologna. For many years he guided the section of Systematic Musicology in the Doctoral School of the same University. He has now retired.

In 1990 he founded the Italian association for the analysis and theory of music (Gruppo Analisi e Teoria Musicale). He was one of the promoters of the foundation of ESCOM (European Society for the Study of Cognitive Aspects of Music), and president for three years of this society.

He has published works on music analysis, emotional aspects of music experience, social impact of music, methodology of music education and historical topics, particularly of 20th century music.

Dr. Daniil Shutko is a Music Theorist and Associate Professor at the Music Theory Department of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. He is a member of Russian Society for Theory of Music (OTM).

In 1998 Daniil Shutko graduated from the class of Dr. Tatiana S. Bershadskaya at St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory as a musicologist. In 2004 he defended a dissertation "French Spectral Music: Theoretical foundations of musical language".

Scholarly interests belong to contemporary music, the theory of mode and tonality, harmony, form in both Russian and Western approaches. Dr. Shutko published a number of papers, including the translation of the theoretical works of Gerard Grisey into the Russian language.