Dr Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey

My research interests are focused on the social-psychological and socio-political aspects of orchestral music-making. This has ranged from investigating the moment-by-moment decision- making of orchestral musicians during rehearsal and performance, to researching the social and political implications of Afghanistan’s orchestral activities. I am currently combining my interests in the sociology of orchestral practices with their international forms in my Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow research here at the University of Sheffield.

Working with scholars and musicians from Afghanistan now living in exile, we are collaborating to produce the first book which will focus exclusively on the historical and contemporary activities, practices and meaning-making of the orchestras of Afghanistan. As part of this work, we have also been ensuring that the orchestral music of Afghanistan continues to flourish at a time where such music-making is censored in the country. The Orchestral Music of Afghanistan: Looking Forward, is an initiative featuring the new compositions of Afghan composers, creating greater access to this incredible musical world for composers and listeners alike.

Previously, my doctoral research at the University of Oxford focused on creativity and authorship in orchestral performance by investigating the influences that shape orchestral players' musical decision-making in rehearsals and performances. To do this I collaborated with computer scientists at the Cornell University to develop a bespoke online data collection platform which facilitated the collection of orchestral musicians’ thoughts and experiences of precisely the same short performance episode producing data that enabled the tracking of musical and social influence from note to note. I developed this research method in my postdoctoral work on the AHRC- funded Transforming 19th-Century Historically Informed Practice in which I researched the consequences for performers and listeners on experimental approaches to 19th-century style, with a focus on the effects of expressive asynchrony. During this project I worked closely with Professor Eric Clarke to develop new methods of tracking the individual timing of string players’ note onsets in an orchestral setting in order to analyse interpersonal micro-timing data across rehearsal, performance and recording contexts and connect that data to musicians’ and audiences’ experiences of the same musical passages.