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Publication Mapping Embodied Cognition in Saxophone Performance of New Music(2024-09) Lykoudis, PantelisIn this thesis I will examine a selection of saxophone repertoire, dating from 1990 to today, through the lens of an embodied approach to cognition in music performance. This examination aims to draw connections, already evident by their chronological overlapping, between saxophone works composed in the tradition of New Music and embodied cognition as a branch of musicology. Embodied music cognition posits that musicking is inherently connected to corporeal gestures, and is indebted to the phenomenological tradition in philosophy, thus investigating the performing subject’s cognitive processes, either internal or external, as well as attempting to interpret and optimize their movements. The developments in saxophone playing techniques since 1990, particularly in European music influenced by Helmut Lachenmann (born 1935), have been significant and require an embodied interpretation, while most of the published scholarship on embodied cognition and neuroscience verifies the reciprocity of such an analysis. In fact, the discourse of New Music aesthetics, constantly inquiring whether pleasure is derived from beauty, along with composers such as Alberto Posadas (born 1967) and ensembles such as Trio Accanto, often provide the inspiration for musicological research. Through case studies such as these, I aim to shed light on the cognitive and motor processes wind instrumentalists’ bodies are going through when interpreting this repertoire. The findings of this research will serve as a conceptual foundation for a more detailed investigation of embodied cognition in saxophone performance through the collection of multimodal data, which I aspire to begin over the course of a doctoral program in music research.