My doctoral research project is an artistic and sociocultural study of contemporary clarinet repertoire composed by Finnish and American composers. The aim is to further develop my artistic practice in new music repertoire, and to understand how and why contemporary American and Finnish repertoire are performed and practiced differently.

I am currently halfway through the project and already I detect the effects that my research has had on how I execute my job as artist and performer. I have a newly heightened awareness of how and why I make artistic decisions, those that sound through the clarinet and as well as those peripheral to the music. I would argue that these performance considerations, obligations and expectations are unique to our present, and reflect an evolving contemporary music practice on local, regional and national scales.

To demonstrate, I will take three case studies from my research project: the recording of my first solo CD Duel that finished this spring, a concert series being organized for performance in Helsinki this fall, and my international contemporary music programming study comparing American and Northern European programming practices. Ranging in scale from personal to international, all three demonstrate the intersections between performer, audience and composer in the performance of contemporary art music.