Chris Tonelli
University of Groningen
Chris Tonelli completed his doctoral work in the Critical Studies and Experimental Practices in Music program at the University of California, San Diego. Before joining ICASP as a postdoctoral fellow for 2013-2014 he was Visiting Lecturer in Contemporary Music and Culture at the New Zealand School of Music at the Victoria University of Wellington and Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is an active vocal improviser who has performed internationally solo and with a diverse range of collaborators that includes a number of other notable improvising vocalists. His research interests include the theorization of vocality, the history and practice of vocal improvisation, voice and “disability,” transnational musical exchanges in and from Japan, and re-presentation/pastiche as a political tool in music. His improvisation research has included practice-centered and applied ethnographic work forming and conducting inclusive improvisational Vocal Exploration Choirs in several cities.
His writing on voice and improvisation has been published in the journal Music and Politics and the Yearbook for Traditional Music, and he has contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies, The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music, and the Routledge volume Music in Video Games: Studying Play. His book Voices Found: Free Jazz & Singing draws on his postdoctoral research, offering a history of improvised singing and a theory of the cultural functions of vocal sound.
