Ioannis Tsekouras

PhD, Musicology (Anthropology of Music), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Music

Since completing my PhD, I have remained active in the same field, that of ethnomusicology, which is defined predominantly as the anthropology of music. My research involves three activities:
(1) enriching already accomplished fieldwork findings through a more systematic engagement with relevant bibliography and archival data;
(2) conducting new fieldwork in extension to the questions and topics I encountered in my dissertation-related fieldwork;
(3) launching new research projects, as these have grown out of the ethnographic case I have been dealing with, but in new topics.

The activities (1) and (2) have resulted in a series of publications in both English and Greek (5 accomplished, two in the press, and one in the making), a number of presentations in international conferences (fifteen since the completion of the PhD), and multiple public talks.
The third activity led to the undertaking of a novel research project in 2023, an anthropological and ethnomusicological (meaning focuses on organized sound) study of the impact of the UNESCO policies on the Pontic Greek custom of momoyeria, and specifically of the registration of the custom into the international intangible cultural heritage list in 2016. This last project has involved techniques of ethnographic video recording along with more traditional research interviews and pre-fieldwork. It involves an ethnography of performance mediation approach that teases the fluid distinction between cultural practice, custom, and ritual. Fieldwork involved participant observation of the actual customs and interviews with cultural insiders.

I am currently working on a publication premised on my findings. In addition, I am waiting to hear from five research projects I applied for this past year that involve: (1) an anthropology of sound study combined with acoustic timbre analysis regarding the sound of the Pontic lyra;
(2) an extension of the momoyeria project for similar customs and ritual all over Greek Macedonia; (3) an applied ethnomusicology project on education that involves the creation of world music curricula for the Greek public schools; (4) research for the creation of music guides for the city of Ioannina, and (5) research in the prefecture of Serres for the creation of a interactive online data base concerning local music and more broadly culture.