Dr Danielle Sofer

Biography

Danielle Sofer is a musicologist and music theorist whose interests intersect at the meeting points between philosophy, psychology, and scientific method in order to better understand the many ways of listening to music. She was awarded a PhD with distinction from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria in 2016 for her dissertation, “Making Sex Sound: Erotic Currents in Electronic Music,” which theorizes the many ways technology has shaped eroticism in recent music with electronic components (musique concrète, electroacoustic music, electronic opera, live electronic performance, etc.). Danielle’s research spotlights the cultural politics of gender and sexuality of the past 60 years, moving these oft-marginalized themes to centre stage in the electronic musical canon. Danielle graduated summa cum laude from the State University of New York at New Paltz with a BA in music performance (viola and piano) and honours. She holds Master’s degrees from Binghamton University (New York) in piano performance and Stony Brook University (New York) in music history and theory, where she wrote a thesis on Prokofiev’s opera The Gambler, which brought her to St. Petersburg, Russia as an Erasmus student. Prior to joining the faculty of the Institute for Musical Criticism and Aesthetical Research in Graz, Danielle studied music theory at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, where she worked as an assistant to Brian Hyer. She has presented on sexuality and electronic music on several occasions, including conferences of the International Computer Music Association, The Society for Music Theory, The Society for Musicology in Ireland, and the Feminist Theory and Music conference. A forthcoming article on Theodor Adorno’s presumed allegiance to “structural listening” is due to appear in a book on the history of musical listening, edited by Klaus Aringer, Franz Karl Prassl, Peter Revers und Christian Utz, and Danielle is currently co-editing a book with Christa Brüstle on the life and work of Irish composer Elizabeth Maconchy, forthcoming from Universal Edition. As a violist, pianist, and singer, Danielle has performed in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Graz, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and many smaller cities around the globe.

Research Interest

Music