CEFRES Team

Louisa Martin-Chevalier – Research & CV

A Subaltern That Sings:
From Sound Resistance to Musical Diplomacy in Wartime Ukraine

Research Area 1: Displacements, “dépaysements” and discrepancies

Contact: louisa.martin-chevalier(@)sorbonne-universite.fr

Louisa Martin-Chevalier is associate professor at Sorbonne University (Musicology Department), where she teaches music history and the analysis of twentieth-century works, as well as thematic courses such as “music and politics” and “musical creation in Eastern Europe”. Her current research extends the work she began on her doctoral thesis on the Soviet avant-garde composer Nikolay Roslavets. It provides keys to understanding contemporary artistic creation in Eastern Europe. She co-created the “Building Relationships in a Changing World – European Musicological Seminar” and the innovative action-research seminar “Forming a collective without a leader”. She is co-director of the ‘Institutional and Social Frameworks’ research team at IReMus and coeditor of the journal Filigrane. Musique, esthétique, science, société. She is initiating a wideranging research programme to examine the impact of exile on women’s artistic creation. 

During two years at CEFRES (2024–2026), she will carry the project “A Subaltern That Sings: From Sound Resistance to Musical Diplomacy in Wartime Ukraine” within the TANDEM program CU-CNRS with Valeria Korablyova (Charles University). 

CV

Associate Professor at Sorbonne University (2019-), Department of Music and Musicology, Institut de Recherche en Musicologie (IReMus), UMR 8223 

 Research and teaching positions 

 Music history, analysis and aesthetics of 20th- and 21st-century music; 20th- and 21st-century music in the post-Soviet space; music and cultural history; music and gender studies; music and cultural transfers 

 Education 

 Postdoc position at Labex CAP Avant-gardes musicales, dissidence et engagement : les années 1920/1930 en Union soviétique au regard de l’époque contemporaine. IRCAM (APM/AC), 2019 

PhD in Musicology : ‘Nikolaj Roslavec, le compositeur “forgeron” de la Révolution d’Octobre. Ses œuvres pour voix et piano (1909-1931)’, Supervisor: Makis Solomos (Université Paris 8), completed on 11 December 2017. The jury was composed of Joëlle Caullier, Jean-Paul Olive, Cécile Pichon-Bonin and Valérie Pozner 

Pedagogical Lead at Cité de la musique for the exhibition ‘Lenin, Stalin and Music’. Training of visitors’ guides, production of texts and accompanying notes, proofreading of the exhibition catalogue. March-December 2010. 

 Colloquia, conferences, symposia, seminars (since 4 years) 

 Colloquia, Conferences and Symposia Abroad 

  • ‘A sound/musical environment for a feminicide. Hildegard Westerkamp’ école polytechnique’, Symposium Exploring Gender-Based Violence and Femicide in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Music Theatre, with Makis Solomos, University of Bern, March 6 2024 
  • ‘Women Composer in the War’, Symposium Impediments & Engagements. Humanities and Social Sciences since the Russian Invasion of Ukraine (CEFRES), Prague, October 20, 2023 
  • ‘The Various forms of Politization of Contemporary Ukrainian Musical Creation’, Symposium NOVA Contemporary Music Meeting, Lisbon, May 5 2023  

Colloquia, Conferences and Symposia in France 

  • ‘Entretien croisé avec Anna Arkushyna et Yana Shliabanska : trajectoires de deux compositrices ukrainiennes en exil’, Symposium De la commande au processus de création (ECCLA), Jean Monnet University, 1-2 June 2023 
  • ‘Mener des recherches sur Nikolaj Roslavets : les enjeux d’un travail de déconstruction’, Symposium Ukrainian Musical Avant-gardes: from 1910 to the present, Sorbonne University, IReMus, April 25 2024 
  • ‘Le lied chez Caroline Charrière : Considérations esthétiques du rapport texte-musique’, Symposium Transmettre des émotions qui vont au-delà des mots : la compositrice suisse Caroline Charrière (1960-2018) (CREAA), Strasbourg University, October 13 2023 
  • ‘Création contemporaine et conflit au regard de la guerre en Ukraine’, Symposium SICM, Le conflit dans la création musicale contemporaine. Violences, idéologies, territoires, hybridations, Lille and Sorbonne University, April 13 2023 
  • ‘Les revues de musicologie dans le cadre francophone’, round-table Francophone Musicology in an International Context – International Symposium (IRN Epistémuse), Paris, December 2 2022 

 Round table  

  • Participation in the round table ‘Décoloniser la recherche et la pédagogie sur l’Ukraine et l’Europe orientale. Notions, enjeux, pratiques’ (ILCEA 4) Grenoble University, June 14 2023 
  • Participation in the round table ‘Ukraine : identités et exils’, Sorbonne University, January 25 2023 

 Seminar  

  •  ‘Les chansons de la révolution de Roslavets : de l’engagement politique à la conception d’un projet politico-esthétique’, Seminar IReMus présente, February 10 2022  
  • ‘’Questionner les expériences avant-gardistes au regard de la création musicale contemporaine russe’, Post-doctoral Seminar Questionner les circulations des objets et des pratiques artistiques : réceptions, réappropriations et nouveaux usages (Labex CAP), INHA, June 24 2019 
  • ‘La notion de “commun” en Union soviétique : des expérimentations musicales collectives aux œuvres pour le collectif’, Seminar Les communs (EDESTA), INHA, March 10 2018 
  • ‘Le rôle des chansons de la Révolution de Nikolaj Roslavec dans le développement de la conscience politique soviétique (1921-1931)’, Seminar Regards croisés sur les avant-gardes soviétiques et contemporaines (MUSIDANSE, CREE, HAR), Inalco, Paris, February 19 2018 

 Research Projects & Artistic projects (since 4 years) 

 Direction of main scientific projects – Fellowships 

  • 2024-2026 : TANDEM European research Program ‘A Subaltern That Sings: From Sound Resistance to Musical Diplomacy in Wartime Ukraine’– TANDEM Project with Valeriya Korablyova (Charles University) 
  • 2024-2026 : European research program ‘Ukrainian Female Musicians and Migrations: a Transnational History of the Crisis’ – Financement IEA, with Mateusz Chmurski, Denis Laborde, Théodora Psychoyou and Hyacinthe Ravet 
  • 2023-2025 : Co-direction of the research program ‘De la commande au processus de création’ (with Viviane Waschbüsch and Laurent Pottier, Jean Monnet University) 
  • April 2024: Research program ‘Ukrainian Musical Avant-gardes: from 1910 to the present’, Sorbonne Université, with Leah Batstone and Liubov Morozova 
  • 2019: Research project ‘Questionner les expériences avant-gardistes au regard de la création musicale contemporaine russe’, IRCAM, (postponed because of Covid) with Nicolas Donin 
  • 2016-2018 : Leader of the French Research project LABEXArts H2H: ‘1917-2017: Regards croisés sur les avant-gardes artistiques soviétiques’ (MUSIDANSE, CREE, HAR) 

 Artistic Direction 

  • April 27 2024: Workshop with Ukrainian composer Katarina Gryvul and the French ensemble Hanatsu in conjunction with the Semaine Internationale de Création Musicale (a partnership between Sorbonne University and the University of Lille), coordination with Eric Maestri 
  • October 26, 2023: Organisation of the concert “She is music : Regards sur trois compositrices croates du XXe siècle : Dora Pejačević, Ivana Lang et Magdalena Ferek Petrić”, in collaboration with the Varaždin School of Music, as part of the musical programming of the gender month of the Mission égalité-VSS, Amphithéâtre Richelieu (Sorbonne University) 
  • January 13-28  2018: Collaboration with Théâtre Gérard Philippe (Saint-Denis) in the context of the visit of the Théâtre Aleksandrinsky (Saint-Petersburg) for the play Kroum, creative workshop and concert 

 Symposium Organisation   

  • SICM 2024 ‘Processus de création de musicale et aspiration à la paix’, IReMus and CEAC (ULR 3587), Jean-Marc Chouvel, Francis Courtot, Eric Maestri, João Fernandes, June 4-5 2024 
  • Symposium ‘Caroline Charrière : de la commande au processus de création’, October 4-5 2024, University of Fribourg, with Delphine Vincent and Viviane Waschbüsch 
  • Symposium ‘Ukrainian Musical Avant-gardes: from 1910 to the present’, Sorbonne University, IReMus, April 24-26 2024, with Leah Batstone and Liubov Morozova 
  • Symposium ‘ De la commande au processus de création / Numérisation des fonds d’archives en musique contemporaine’, Jean Monnet University, IReMus/ECCLA/University of Fribourg, with Viviane Waschbüsch, Laurent Pottier and Delphine Vincent, November 15-16 2023 
  • SICM 2023 ‘Le conflit dans la création musicale contemporaine. Violences, idéologies, territoires, hybridations’, IReMus and CEAC (ULR 3587), Jean-Marc Chouvel, Francis Courtot, Iván Adriano Zetina Ríos, Eric Maestri, João Fernandes, Luc Deduytschaever, April 13-14 2023 
  • Symposium ‘De la commande au processus de création / Parcours de compositrices au XXe et XXIe siècle’, Jean Monnet University, IReMus/ECCLA/University of Fribourg, with Viviane Waschbüsch, Laurent Pottier and Delphine Vincent, June 5-6 2023 

 Seminar Organisation   

  • 2023-: Coordination of the GeMM seminar ‘Women musicians in Eastern Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries: circulations, mobilizations and exiles’, IReMus 
  • 2022-: Co-organisation of the European research seminar ‘Building Relationships in a Changing World – European Musicological Seminar’, Sorbonne University / Musical Academies of Ukraine, with Sylvie Douche, Anne Piéjus and Théodora Psychoyou 
  • 2022-2023: Co-organisation of the doctoral and postdoc seminar: ‘Creation, Cognition, Learning’, IReMus, with Jean-Marc Chouvel, Philippe Lalitte, Eric Maestri and François Giroux 
  • 2020-: Co-organisation of the research and practical seminar: ‘Former un collectif sans chef.fe’ (‘Devising a conductor free ensemble’), Sorbonne University, Masterwith Gilles Demonet and Hyacinthe Ravet 
  • 2018-2019: Co-organisation of the postdoc seminar: ‘Investigating the Flows of Artistic Objects and Practices : Reception, Ownership and New Uses’, supported by French Research Project Labex CAP, Paris-I-INHA 

 Round table Organisation   

  • June 6 2023: Women composer in wartime, with composers Yana Shliabanska and Pascale Criton, colloque Parcours de compositrices au XXe et XXIe siècle, Université Jean Monnet- St-Etienne, IReMus/ECCLA/Université de Fribourg 
  • October 3 2022: Co-organisation with Théodora Psychoyou, L’Opéra d’avant-garde en Ukraine, aujourd’hui et demain. A la rencontre de Nova Opera de Kiyv, Sorbonne University 

 Main Publications 

* Books and Chapters in Edited Books 

  • Avant-gardes, dissidence et engagement : les années 1920/1930 en Union soviétique au regard de l’époque contemporaine, Éditions Symétrie, collection 20/21, in progress [no access to archives since February 2022]. 
  • Nikolaj Roslavets, le compositeur “forgeron” de la Révolution d’Octobre. Ses œuvres pour voix et piano (1909-1931), Presses de la Méditerranée, work accepted but interrupted [no access to archives since February 2022]. 
  • L’avant-garde musicale russe et la révolution de 1917 : entre rupture et violence, Melotonia volume 4 « Musique et violence », Muriel Joubert and Denis Le Touzé ed., 2021, p. 233-257 

* Articles 

  • « Entretiens croisés avec des compositrices ukrainiennes : composer en temps de guerre », De la commande au processus de création (ECCLA, IReMus), Slatkine (publication scheduled for June 2024)   
  • “The Various forms of Politization of Contemporary Ukrainian Musical Creation”, Composing Music Today, International Conference Proceedings, NOVA Contemporary Music Journal, Volume 2 (online in 2024) 
  • « Les mobilisations sonores pendant la révolution de Maïdan : entretiens avec Liubov Morozova », Filigrane, Musique, Esthétique, Sciences, Société, n°28 : Sons et esthétiques dans la protestation sociale. Mouvements post-altermondialistes (December 2023) ;https://revues.mshparisnord.fr/filigrane/index.php?id=1441  
  • « Nikolaj Roslavec, vers l’élaboration d’une nouvelle pensée musicale (1913-1931) », Musurgia [in the process of being appraised] 
  • « Célébrer la Révolution d’Octobre en musique : une fête politique ? », Actes du colloque Construction and Reconstruction of the Memory of the 1917 Revolution in Contemporary Russia (ILCEA 4-CEFR), Université Grenoble Alpes, 2019 ; https://journals.openedition.org/ilcea/6683  

https://www.iremus.cnrs.fr/fr/membres-permanents/louisa-martin-chevalier