In REPaMS, my background in contemporary performance practice and performance studies in contemporary music converge. As a guitarist-researcher, much of my work focuses on complex music (also known as New Complexity). Drawing on years of experience performing this repertoire and reflecting on the physical and mental demands it entails, my current MSCA project explores how performers not only interpret but also embody and generate musical structure.

An example of this approach can be found in Brian Ferneyhough’s Kurze Schatten II for solo guitar, which I worked on around ten years ago during my PhD. In its second movement, Ferneyhough explores the tension between performance tempo and perceived material density. As the tempo gradually slows, rhythmic values contract and pitch constellations proliferate — creating the paradoxical impression that, while the music thickens, time itself expands and decelerates. Excerpts from the beginning and the end of the score may illustrate this.

The following recorded performance illustrates my efforts to embody and negotiate such contradictions. The performer’s supporting gestures — breaths, sways, pulsations — mediate between notated density and perceived tempo, revealing that structure in complex music is not merely written but performed into existence.