We are very pleased to announce that Misha Penton successfully completed her viva today. Congratulations Dr Penton! The online viva was an absolutely fascinating and engaging discussion. The work, titled Vocality as / in Composition: solo and collaborative creation of new postopera works, comprised a portfolio of two substantial new media monodramas and a site-specific postopera, along with a sequence of micro-operas interspersed amongst the text of the substantial commentary. The research focused on ‘compositional methods centred in an embodied vocal practice and the exploration of a multi-layered meaning-making process’, drawing on theory that included Jelena Novak, Hans-Thies Lehmann, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Julia Kristeva, and Adriana Cavarero. It also proposed a practical application of versioning as a way to make multiple differently-presented framings of a work.
For more information on Misha’s work, have a look at her website.