♪ Opening theme music ♪
Hello, and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation.
My name is Diane Kollin.
The series presents artists, academics, and project leaders would dedicate their
time and energy to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts.
You can find more of these conversations on our website, artsably.com,
which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com
♪ Theme music ♪
Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Dr. Stefan Sunandan Honisch,
a sessional instructor in the department of theater and film
at the University of British Columbia,
exploring the intersectional fields of disability studies, music, and pedagogy.
You can find the resources mentioned by Dr. Stefan Sunandan Honisch during this episode
on ArtsAbly's website in the blog section.
♪ Franz Schubert's Impromptu No. 3 in G-Flat Major, Andante ♪
Thank you very much, Stefan, for being here today.
My pleasure.
So I am with Stefan Sunandan Honisch, and he is a sessional instructor
at the department of theater and film at the University of British Columbia.
And, I think your research interests, are at the intersection of
critical disability studies, music, and also critical pedagogy, right?
Yes. Yeah.
I'll also maybe just add that my research, and teaching has,
within the last several years, also, expanded to include, theater studies.
At the moment, I'm teaching a course on dramaturgy in my department.
Thank you. Okay.
So I know that in UBC, you're also doing a lot of different
kinds of research, but you're also a pianist.
And I wanted to ask you about your background,
everything that came before you became a professor at UBC.
Okay.
Thanks very much, Diane.
And also, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss my background in piano.
This is an aspect of my experience
that has certainly stayed with me, all these years.
So, I began piano lessons at the age of 7. It's - I don't know, whether this is
a common experience of getting older, but I find it easier to remember things that
happened, you know, 30 plus years ago, sometimes,
than to remember what happened the last week or yesterday.
And the reason I preface with that is I still remember quite vividly
seeing a piano recital, on television.
It was on CBC television.
It was the pianist Angela Hewitt.
And I think I started pestering my parents pretty soon thereafter,
for piano lessons. And I remember also very vividly, coming home -
My sister and I came home from school.
We would have been - I would have been, I think 6 or 7,
and my sister, one year younger than me.
And I heard the sound of a piano, and it was coming from my room,
at my parents' home, and my dad was seated at the piano, and just playing a few notes.
And so, the piano has been a continual presence
ever since in my life, in my research, in my teaching,
And, just, even if I'm not,
thinking about the piano and piano playing for research
or teaching, on a given day or in a given week.
There is - the piano is -
I risk sort of veering into sentimentality here, but
again, maybe there's nothing wrong with, being sentimental, after a certain age.
So, the piano for me is is a friend, a companion.
And so just having the piano as this constant presence in my life,
is something that I treasure, and I have my parents to thank for that.
And for everything else. Yeah.
Thank you. Yeah.
There is nothing wrong about being sentimental in any age possible.
Right. Yeah.
So after - so you started piano lessons and you developed,
some piano skills, but when did you go from the pianist
to being interested in anything about, I would say disability studies,
which is today, but maybe in the years you started exploring that,
it was not called disability studies, it was called something else,
or it was not developed yet or something like that.
So can you can you explain how you switched from the pianist
to the researcher, basically?
Okay. Thanks very much, Diane.
That's a really interesting question,
and an important question.
I think that in terms of my own experience, there
there wasn't an abrupt modulation, if you'll forgive the somewhat overodd musical metaphor.
There wasn't, an abrupt modulation there -
I'm going to repeat the overodd metaphor - from being
a student of the piano to being a researcher of disability and music performance
or disability and piano performance.
When I became aware of disability studies,
this was towards the end of my master's studies
in piano performance and composition at the University of British Columbia.
My sister sent me an article by Joseph Straus, one of the first publications in
the now flourishing field of music and disability studies.
And I managed to do a directed studies program
in the school of music with professor Rena Sharon and also
the support of Professor Jane Coop,
both of whom, I studied with, for the course of my master's program,
and because I wanted to explore possible applications of disability -
of disability studies in piano performance, and in piano pedagogy as well.
And so that marked maybe a gentle kind of
transition, into - from
thinking about the piano as a music student at the time, to thinking about
the kinds of research questions I might ask, about being a disabled pianist.
And, again, to some extent, this might be a common experience for
at least some disabled scholars and disabled musicians.
As I read more throughout the course of my graduate work, and began to learn more
about disability studies, and certainly about learning - as I began to learn more
about critical approaches in disability studies.
I came to an awareness, I suppose retrospectively,
in some sense, that I had spent my life up to that point trying as much
as possible to be less disabled or to try to be as not disabled as possible.
And becoming aware of disability studies as a field
about disability activism and so forth,
highlighted for me that it's actually possible to not only to accept
being disabled, as a part of one's identity, but,
to find meaning, richness - richness, not in the capitalist
sense of wealth, acquisition, but richness, nuance,
skill, delicacy, beauty, of one kind or another in being disabled.
And so that all just to say that I -
for me, there's been a kind of recursive quality,
if I could frame it that way,
from studying the piano,
thinking about the piano, at one point, having aspirations
to be a professional pianist, on one hand, and then,
making a fairly smooth transition
not for them to bounce, but relatively smooth, from
studying the piano as an aspiring pianist, to moving,
into research, and teaching.
Within the large, the capacious umbrella of disability studies.
I see.
And so the, the book that you were mentioning - the article that you
were mentioning, it then became a book. Right?
It was "Extraordinary measures" from Joseph Straus.
Yes.
So, yeah, well, you're right.
One of the first - the first, really literary, exploration of the intersection
between the critical disability studies field and the musical field.
And then many followed, but that was really one of the
really interesting first exploration.
So this was your master.
And then, you did a PhD too.
Right? I did. Yes.
And it followed the same exploration, or did you - I know you
you did a post doctoral research about Helen Keller, But did this was already,
in your mind when you were doing your master and your PhD, or how did you,
how did you segwayed from what you were researching to Helen Keller?
Right. So, if I could just maybe begin with my PhD studies, because,
when you were introducing me earlier, you'd noted that my research interests
encompass critical pedagogy.
So the move into the education department
was in some sense unexpected, but
certainly productive, in various ways.
And, so over the course of my PhD studies,
and working on my dissertation, and so forth.
I had the opportunity to think about music from the outside, as it were,
from the perspective of critical approaches in education studies,
in educational research, that have taken on cultural -
that have taken on perspectives and methodologies,
and theoretical insights from cultural studies, for example, to,
to forward critiques of, what it's often called Western Art Music
or Western classical music, overcharged, problematic and misleading descriptors.
to cultural studies approaches or
sociological approaches in education, critical pedagogy,
as a distinct area within education, for example, all
share a concern with the ways in which traditions such as those associated with
the kinds of formal music pedagogy of Colleges and Conservatories,
Universities in North America and Europe.
Both historically and the interest of present, have been,
have participated, in various ways in, colonizing approaches to
how we think about music. And one complication
for some of these cultural studies critiques, of course,
is that in recent years, in the last several decades, let's say,
because of the new musicology, and because of the
entry of critical approaches in music studies, some of the critiques
from within education studies, informed by cultural studies,
by sociology, by critical pedagogy approaches,
some of those critiques need updating and refinement.
And, we can talk more, if there's opportunity within the scope
of today's conversation about my - how my first book project,
grew out of my dissertation research. With respect to the question of Helen Keller.
I'll say maybe two things about my postdoctoral research, that might be relevant.
So, Helen Keller has long fascinated me, for various reasons,
not because of the conventional and, not only similar, but overly similar stories,
and croupes, really, associated with her life.
But, because of her her writing.
So what drew me first to Helen Keller's work,
is her writing, just how she writes.
I happened upon a few excerpts from some of the writing and I was
neatly drawn to her writing style.
And as I began reading some of her other writings in her books,
and thanks to my parents and sister,
I now have a wonderful collection of work by Helen Keller, including
a first edition of one of her books that my parents and sister went to
quite some effort to obtain for me.
And it's one of my treasured books.
So, also, as I read more of her work,
I became interested in her activism, in her writings about politics,
her support for workers, and so forth.
And then also, in all honestly, the contested aspects of her life and work,
her highly problematic and rightly criticized support for eugenics
is one example, her support for what I believe are known
as sheltered workshops, which exist to this day, as far as I understand.
And there are ongoing efforts to ensure that
or to recognize that the work that disabled people do in the workforce
should be fairly compensated at the very least.
So, all of those aspects of Helen Keller's life and work,
the admirable work that she did and the not so admirable,
thinking that comes across in some of her work as well,
make her somebody really of enduring importance,
I would say as with so many great thinkers, so many important
so many public figures, whose work
remains of value, in really lasting ways.
I think the very the fact that not everything she wrote,
or not everything she said or thought,
is admirable or, fair minded or
in some cases, not everything that she wrote is principled.
I think it's precisely that complexity, and those moments of ambiguity
and in her struggle, you know, to find and articulate
an egalitarian politics, I think, you know, there are many questions
that we can continue to ask about Helen Keller's work.
And I think that's precisely what -
one of the things that I find of such
sustained interest for for me,
in thinking about Keller's life and work.
And, just as an aside, I - that's what prompted me to apply for
the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship program.
And during the course of my research, I unexpectedly came across this poem
by Helen Keller, and that remains beyond my postdoc,
that remains a second key focus out of the projects that I'm working on.
There's a a poem Helen Keller wrote called “A Chant of Darkness”
and it's been set to music twice, at least that I'm aware of,
including in a setting by the Italian American composer Cesare Sodero,
in an Italian translation, “Canto dall’ oscurità."
And, what I've been hoping to do,
through - with Banting funding,
I was able to hire a graduate student to help me with
transcribing the the manuscript, full score and parts.
And one thing that I'm hoping to do, and this remains an ongoing project,
is to have this music performed.
I am not aware of any existing recordings.
I've had some initial conversations with the New York Public Library performing arts division,
and they've been immensely helpful.
And, they've expressed, initial interest in - if I'm able to
have this music performed and recorded, they've expressed interest in
having a recording for their collections, of this music.
And, so far as I'm aware, there is no recording of this work,
and there's no published edition of this music and the,
the reception of Keller's poem,
the circumstances in which she wrote the poem and how she thought of this work
and installation then to Sodero's
setting for voice and orchestra,
I think, offers much to to work with, both from a pedagogical standpoint
and then also in terms of research.
Very good. I was just going to ask you the setting of that. You told me
it was voice and orchestra. Very interesting.
I didn't know at all. Okay.
And so that was - your Helen Keller work.
Are you going to publish something about this work?
I'm hoping, certainly I've been
working on developing my research
on Helen Keller into published form.
Because I'm a sessional lecturer, I'm doing contract based work so -
and I have my first book under contract, which is a priority, and
opportunities come along the way as well.
So all of that is to say that, is it's certainly a priority for me to
take the exploratory work that I did, during the course of my
postdoctoral research and develop these explorations.
I did some conference presentations, and so forth.
And I'd like to develop this more fully into longer publications,
and so forth, certainly.
So speaking of projects that you have, your book, can you talk about it?
Sure. Thanks, Diane.
So, my book
is under contact with the University of Michigan Press,
and this grows out of my, doctoral research. And as with
I guess many first book projects, it both starts from the dissertation, but also
moves beyond the scope of a dissertation.
So, I became aware of the pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii
during the course of my doctoral research,
and the timing was fortuitous in the sense that
this was right around the time that I was thinking about my dissertation topic,
and when I found out that Nobuyuki Tsujii shared the gold medal
at the 2009 Van Cliburn competition, and that his blindness
constituted a key focus,
almost to the point of the obsession at times in the press reception
of the 2009 Cliburn competition, I -
it became clear to me that I wanted to pursue this.
The questions raised about disabled pianists, piano competitions, the
sort of political economy of musical life, as it were.
And, because of where I live, and have lived almost continuously
with a two year pause in between,
at St. John's College, which is a residential college on the campus of British Columbia,
of the University of British Columbia, the Point Grey campus.
Because of where I live, there's a strong emphasis on
informal and and non formal educational events.
So I was able to work with the college staff and faculty
and fellow residents at the time, this was in 2013,
to bring Nobuyuki Tsujii to the University of British Columbia for a solo recital.
He also participated in a question and answer session.
And, this was all, by that point,
3 or 4 years after his Cliburn victory.
And I had the chance to meet with Nobu, as he likes to be called,
and also Nick Asano, who was traveling with him at the time, as an assistant and manager.
And I've stayed in touch with both of them, throughout the years.
And I interviewed Nobuyuki Tsujii for my dissertation.
And the questions that I explore about what it means to be a pianist,
what it means to be marked as a blind pianist in Nobuyuki Tsujii's case,
and to resist that label, that has also helped me for the book project,
which explores discourses of virtuosity and disability,
from - within a larger framework,
connected to discourses of vulnerability.
And so the the plan title for this book project is
“Vulnerable Virtuosities: Disability in Concert and Competition.”
And I was briefly briefly at Uppsala University for postdoctoral research
in 2018, part of a research unit that explores vulnerability,
not as a synonym for weakness and helplessness and dependency
but as a productive way of being in the world that makes
a number of ethical and esthetic demands that raises questions
about ethical interactions.
And I've also been influenced,
in a sustained way by the work of Julietta Singh who, in a 2017 book,
develops the concept of vulnerable reading, as an interdisciplinary and
improvisatory approach to interdisciplinary engagement.
And so that that idea of interdisciplinarity of improvisation,
in one's approach to engaging with variety of texts, that informs the approach
that I'm hoping to take in the full length book manuscript.
Did you have the opportunity of finding, other blind pianists than Nobu and discuss
the differences and if they were able to participate in piano competitions
and how it affected their, maybe their career, maybe their
way of learning, things like that.
Yes.
That's a really great question, Diane.
So, when I first began exploring this topic, as a doctoral candidate,
I reached out to librarians, to a number of university library,
listservs and so forth. And
with respect to bling pianists, the names of pianists
who come from the world of jazz, and popular musical idioms,
those were frequent recommendations.
My interest was and has remained, because of my own training
and background and experience,
my interest has remained more firmly within, I guess what's called
the classical music world.
And so I've been able to find a number of historical examples, and,
examples going, I would say as far back as Maria Theresia Paradis,
who I believe started with Mozart, and was favorably reviewed by Charles Burney and others.
And the historical example of Paradis and her life and work
brings into the exploration, questions of of gender,
how gender and disability intersect, in terms of lived experience,
and professional activities and professional opportunities.
And then also, of course, in terms of critical and popular reception.
So, one of the sort of unifying threads
if I can phrase it that way, in these various case studies that I'm exploring for the book,
has to do with the juxtaposition or the -
and the friction very often between,
lived experience of disability, lived experience as a disabled pianist for example, and then,
the kinds of discourses that are mobilized
in critical and popular reception, very often replete with cliches
about blindness but then also, critical and popular reception,
documents and texts certainly can offer something much more interesting than
cliches and and and tropes.
So all of that is, I think, worth thinking through and thinking with.
And just, apropos or, in relation to my book project,
if I can mention one other activity connected,
a fairly recent activity connected to my book, which
I was able to organize, this was during the first lockdowns,
after the WHO declared the COVID pandemic. So, a lot of activities,
research activities and so forth were moving online.
So, with the support of a seed grant from the interdisciplinary histories research cluster at UBC,
I was able to bring Debra Saylor, a pianist, teacher and singer, based in the US,
to join UBC via zoom for a guest lecture on her work
and on her own success in the Van Cliburn competition for outstanding amateurs.
And encountering Debra Saylor's playing and how she thinks and talks about music.
has provided an expanded sense of possibility in terms of my own thinking
about the meeting of vulnerability and virtuality in performance.
So that workshop, which was recorded on Zoom,
is one of the ace studies,
as it were, that I explore for my book.
A number of recommendations also came from librarians,
at various universities, who directed me to
published research that doesn't necessarily focus on
high profile blind pianists or disabled musicians,
but instead is based on empirical research involving case studies,
participant observation with disabled musicians,
who don't necessarily maintain an international
performing career, but who are very active in community music settings,
and so forth.
And, again, if there's time,
this latter connection between the work that disabled positions do and
community spaces and so forth, that don't have the visibility,
really, of international, piano competitions or of the
international concert circuit.
This has become an important aspect of my work, because of
my participation in some SHRCC [Social Sciences and Humanities] funded projects that I was invited
to join, towards the end of my postdoc.
There was, one resource which a UBC Music librarian pointed me to,
it is a printed general reference source piano in concert.
I think it was published in 1982.
And I was able to find short entries for historical examples of a number of blind pianists.
And because my specific interest at that time was blind pianists,
I wanted to find examples of other blind pianists who had participated
in international piano competitions.
My initial search was narrowed, in some way, to
specifically blind pianists and more specifically in concerts and competition life.
And so, I became aware within the first couple of years
of 6 or 7 pianists, in particular who, in some cases,
had passed away, several decades previously.
And there are some examples of younger pianists who are still active.
The French pianist Bernard d’Ascoli, for example. And I also reached out to the -
there's a wonderful reference on piano competitions specifically.
So I reached out to the Alink and Argerich Foundation
and I corresponded briefly with Dr. Gustav Alink
who was most helpful in directing me to
not only specific entries that I might otherwise have not realized,
included blind pianists who
won distinct or who achieved distinction in a given competition in a given year.
But then also, he,
directed me to magazines and newspapers in European context
that I might also have not been aware of.
So all of that is to say that, because of my own specific interests,
that I in some sense narrowed down relatively quickly,
I was able to find specific examples of blind pianists active as teachers,
as concept pianists, and as jurors.
One pianist I particularly interested in is Alberto Mozzati,
who, as far as I know, didn't himself - I think he competed in one or two competitions and
achieved some success, but he was quite active as as a juror at competitions,
and then also, he produced a number of just really wonderful recordings
of music by Chopin and other composers.
And YouTube has become
just a really fantastic resource in many ways,
because it means that a great many recordings,
and live performances that might otherwise be
difficult to access are readily available. Because of my disability,
it's not possible for me to travel extensively around Europe, for example,
or for that matter around North America, to dig up archival materials and so forth.
So, having, a number of resources available open access,
or relatively easy to access, makes a huge difference for my research.
So what about this section that is covered by SSHRC [Social Sciences and Humanities funding] that you just mentioned? Can you talk about about that?
You and I have also collaborated and been involved in some of the same events, through these SSHRC funded projects.
Towards the end of my postdoc, I received an email from Adam Bell, who's now at Western University,
as a Canada research chair.
And Adam invited me to join these SSHRC funded projects that he was working on.
And these have to do with disability in educational settings,
in community settings.
So there's the Canadian Accessible Musical Instruments Network, or CAMIN, that's the acronym.
And I'm a co applicant in that project.
And, so this -
and my participation in both, is made possible
by through the support of St. John's College, which is supporting my participation in both
of these projects because I don't have a permanent academic appointment.
So being able to live and work at St. John's College provides me with
the scope that I - and the kinds of resources
that support my participation in these projects.
The second SSHRC funded project is connected to the first, and this is
something that Adam invited me to work with him, on as a co director.
So this is a SSHRC race, gender, diversity initiative project,
facilitating anti ableist remote music making or,
the acronym sounds like farm FAARMM.
And the the common thread between both of these projects has to do with
the work and the knowledge and the skills of disabled musicians working in a range
of settings in context, including in the community, in online and hybrid formats.
And most projects support the exploration of
design work led by disabled people, to create opportunities
for designing instruments and ways of making music that are
accessible in ways that familiar instruments often aren't.
And then also opportunities for collaboration for music making
for thinking and researching music, in online and hybrid formats
that also support increased participation by disabled people, because
in so many ways, strictly in person events
can present any number of obstacles
to the participation of disabled people.
And these are important projects because there is such a lack of - of these,
the presence of these projects in our field.
And we know of projects that have a specific aim and then
its ends such as conferences or such as symposiums that are really great
because that's where we meet each other.
But there is a struggle of continuing the work after that.
So thank you for, being part of these projects.
It's really important.
Thank you so much, Diane.
And I I also want to echo your thanks, and offer my thanks to you,
for the work that you're doing.
Most recently, your presentation on ArtsAbly
for John's College and the work that you're leading to
create opportunities, and bring increased awareness of
the work that we're all doing as disabled colleagues, as musical colleagues,
and the ways in which being disabled musicians also connects us in these
networks of collegiality and collaboration.
I'm most grateful to you for the work that you're leading.
Thank you so much.
I have a question that I like to ask.
It's about, the the meaning of working in arts and promoting accessibility.
And I like to ask people, what do you - what is your -
what does it mean for you to work in, in a field of accessibility in the arts?
I really love this question.
It's not one that is necessarily easy to answer.
And I think that's one of the reasons I really like it.
So for me, working on access, trying to support access, to
come to increased awareness of my own access needs,
and to learn how to support the access needs of colleagues, friends,
and students,
in a range of learning environments, professional environments, and so forth.
What that means for me is attending to the ways in which
the disability study - the disability justice
principle of collective access offers a particularly bright guiding star,
as it were, but also the recognition that thinking
at all times about possible ways in which access needs of different people
might be in tension
with one another.
And further, and at the same time, recognizing that,
when faced with the reality or prospect of
conflicting or incongruous access needs of different people
in a given context, the responsibility is not to
as is unfortunately done far too often, to try to
establish a hierarchy of which access needs are more important.
This is the sort of neoliberal way.
And it has to do with so many aspects of this sort of
rhetoric of scarce resources, which is, in many ways manufactured.
The resources aren't scarce, the way the economy is organized makes it really
well nigh impossible for so many people to get the kinds of support that they need.
And I mentioned all this because, the responsibility, for those of us
who work on accessibility in the arts, and on supporting access, in
hopefully transformative ways.
The responsibility is always to figure out how to work with individuals,
in ways that support all access needs as fully and as ethically and as responsibly,
as we are capable of doing without,
not only without giving credence to the neoliberal hierarchies and
sort of tokenistic approaches to, you know, reasonable accommodation, and so forth.
Not only refusing to give credence to that,
to those harmful discourses and practices, but also to -
to show what we are offering that is an alternative, a genuinely inclusive,
ethical, and dialogical, and,
solidaristic approach to access.
Yes, it makes sense. And it's really -
We - Everybody has a different access need.
Right.
So this is also something that, to have a broader openness on access needs
and accessibility in general,
is something that is coming more and more, but still not here fully.
Right.
And so, yeah, that's, that's really important.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Diane.
So I have the last question before we conclude our conversation, which is about,
inspiration, or about someone that you would,
that you would envision or think of when you're thinking of your own work,
someone who maybe have guided you to where you are today or just someone that you admire.
Who would that person be?
Thanks for the question.
The two people I think of right away are my parents.
And they're example,
they're examples of generosity
of kindness, compassion, hospitality.
And I know they might be amused by this
in some way, if they hear this
part of my response, but my own commitment to egalitarianism,
to egalitarian politics, to critiques of
the - to the practices of capitalism.
All of this is inspired by my parents,
because of what I have learned from them
over the years and what I continue to learn from them about what it means
to recognize the right of everybody to have enough to eat,
to have a roof over their head.
My parents have always
shown my sister and me
such care and support
and have always, made sure that we not only have, enough to eat, but
more than we could possibly imagine.
So that kind of boundless generosity
and that example of what it means to
be committed to the well-being of others, that continues to guide me.
And both my parents are deeply interested in the arts
in literature, in music.
My mom's knowledge of and enthusiasm
for the classical and folk traditions
of India and Pakistan and Bangladesh,
that continues to inspire me and to guide my own
participation in the arts.
And my dad, my dad is an artist.
And I am hoping for the book, for my book to use one of his paintings.
And he was a very generous about right away giving me permission
to use his painting for my book cover.
And so I'm certainly hoping to do this, which will depend on the publisher's approval.
And as I work on the book manuscript,
I find moments, you know, to,
look at my dad's painting and that also remains a constant inspiration -
source of inspiration for me.
Thank you very much. It's great.
I mean, I - family support is such an important point.
So I'm glad to hear that. Yeah.
It's no exaggeration to say that I wouldn't be here without my parents,
like, in so many ways.
Like, I wouldn't be able to do the work that I do without my parents.
Well, thank you very much for our conversation today.
It's really inspiring. And I'm really looking forward to
speaking with you again in different contexts because I'm sure we're gonna
have some projects again in the future,
common projects, but also reading about,
reading your book and reading about the progress
that's gonna lead to the publication.
Thank you so much, Diane.
It's really great to be with you and to explore these ideas
and topics of shared interest.
Thank you so much. And talk soon.
Yes, talk to you soon.
Yeah.
And I hope that that you have a good day ahead.
You too. Thanks.
Bye, Stefan. Okay. Bye.
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