Music Research Seminar: Dr Georgia Volioti (University of Surrey)

About Georgia Volioti 

I am a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Surrey with interdisciplinary research interests in music performance studies, music psychology and music education. Drawing from empirical methodologies (quantitative and qualitative research methods), psychology, sociology and cultural-historical contextual study, my research investigates both technical and expressive dimensions of performance (mainly western 'art' music), listeners' aesthetic responses and evaluations of performance, creativity in performance, musicians' learning behaviours (self-regulation, self-efficacy) and, more broadly, the role of culture in shaping music practices. My research interests include:

• Music Performance Studies: performance practice (especially piano repertoire); performance historiography; cultural memory and identity in performance; the media and materiality of recording technologies; cultural responses to the legacy of recordings; landscape and music; visual culture and music; the music of Edvard Grieg; analysis and modelling of expressive performance parameters (research methods include principal component analysis, self-organising maps, clustering, and correlation statistics). 
• Music Psychology: expressive gesture in performance; listening practices; musical development and self-regulated learning; musicians' self-efficacy; creativity, originality and value in performance; evaluation of music performance.
• Music Education: listening pedagogies; recording studio pedagogies; technology, gender and education; transitions in higher music education; inclusion in music education; music careers and employability in HE. 

My book (co-edited with Daniel Barolsky) Recorded Music in Creative Practices: Mediation, Performance, Education is published by Routledge (2024) in the series SEMPRE Studies in the Psychology of Music. I am currently co-editing (with equal contribution to the project) a special journal issue (titled 'On Music') of Performance Research (Taylor & Francis). I am also co-organising, with Professor Sue Miller, the conference 'Broadening Music Performance: New Approaches and Possibilities for Higher Music Education' (University of Surrey, Guildford, 26-27 June 2025). 

I have published sole-authored full-length studies in leading peer-reviewed journals, including The Musical Quarterly and Music & Letters (Oxford University Press journals), The Journal of Musicological Research (Taylor & Francis), and Musicae Scientiae (SAGE ESCOM journal). My research explores diverse topics ranging from performance practice and cultural memory in performance to interdisciplinarity in music studies (book chapter in Remixing Music Studies Routledge) and performers' learning and self-regulation (research articles in Musicae Scientiae and Research Studies in Music Education (SAGE SEMPRE journals)). My scholarly review articles have been published in the top peer-reviewed journals Psychology of Music, Musicae Scientiae, Empirical Musicology Review and Nineteenth-Century Music Review.