Dr Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo studied sonic art with the composer, performer, instrument inventor and musicologist Hugh Davies. After obtaining an MA in sonic art researching on concrete and sound poetry, he catalogued the Hugh Davies Collection at the British Library with the support of the Saga Trust. He was awarded a PhD on Davies's work supervised by Dr. John Dack.
Dr Palermo has presented his research internationally and has been invited by a number of institutions such as the British Library and the Victoria & Albert Museum to discuss his research. He co-curated the Sho-Zyg exhibition at Goldsmiths (University of London), which saw some of Davies's instruments and archival items displayed, as well as the performance and presentation of some of Davies's pieces. Subsequently he published a book chapter and a journal article on Davies's musical instruments, developing a perspective described as "queer organology."
English, Italian
Dr Palermo is the module leader for MUS2015 Music and Culture, where he contributes classes in the sociology of music and feminist music, MUS3014 Popular Music Studies, where his teaching focuses on approaches like gender and sexuality and nationalism. He co-leads MUS3013 Production Project, where he facilitates workshops for the planning and outlining of a production project. He also leads MUS3019 Negotiated Project, a module that allows students to pursue an individual major practical and/or research project of their own design.
Dr Palermo welcomes PhD students who are interested in the areas of sonic art, electronic experimental music, and popular music
Dr Palermo has contributed significantly to the development in the scholarship on the work of his former tutor Hugh Davies. He is also interested in popular music studies, currently concentrating on queer theory approaches.
Publications:
Palermo, SF; 2020; "Instrumental Trouble: A Queer Organology of Hugh Davies’s Found Instruments"; InterAlia, 15 https://doi.org/10.51897/interalia/OKAD1849
Palermo, SF; 2015; "The Work of Hugh Davies in the Context of British Experimental Electronic Music in Britain"; PhD, Middlesex University, http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/17408/
Articles and Chapters in Edited Books:
Palermo, SF; 2018; "Hugh Davies's Shozyg I"; Music and Sonic Art: Practices and Theories; M. Dogantan-Dack and John Dack; Cambridge Scholar Press.
Refereed and Published Conference Proceedings:
Palermo, SF; 2011; "Technology, Metaphysics, and Politics: A Study of Daphne Oram's Theory and Practice of Music"; Music and Sonic Art: Practices and Theories; Volume II, 63-68; G.E. Lasker, J. Dack, M. Dogantan-Dack; Baden Baden (Germany); Markgraf-Ludwig-Gymnasium; ISBN 978-1-897233-25-2
Palermo, SF; 2010; "Hugh Davies: Ecocritical Composer"; Music and Sonic Art: Practices and Theories; Volume I, 35-40; G.E. Lasker, J. Dack, M. Dogantan-Dack; Baden Baden, Germany; Markgraf-Ludwig-Gymnasium
Palermo, SF; 2009; "Experimental Music in England in the late 1960s and early 1970s: the Aesthetics of Political and Social Conscience"; Systematic Musicology; L. Naveda, M. Marin; Ghent, Belgium; Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music
Palermo, SF; 2008; "Escaping the Ivory Tower: Hugh Davies's Research in New Musical Solutions"; Systems Research in the Arts & Humanities: On Interaction / Interactivity in Music, Design, Visual & Performative Arts; Vol. II, 84-87; G.E. Lasker et als; Baden Baden, Germany; Markgraf-Ludwig-Gymnasium
Other Refereed and/or Non-Published Conference Contributions:
Palermo, SF; 2019; "Three Cases in the Epistemology of the Closet in Popular Music", XX International Biennal Conference of IASPM, Australian National University
Palermo, SF; 2016; "Queer, Gay, Post-Gay Politics in Popular Music Texts: What's It Gonna Be?"; 1st Symposium of the LGBTQ+ Music Study Group, Edge Hill University
Palermo, SF; 2016; "Serendipitous and Subversive: A Critical Organology of Hugh Davies's Found Instruments"; Alternative Histories of Electronic Music, Science Museum, London
Palermo, SF; 2014; "Hugh Davies's Invented Instrument: Between Technological Emancipation and Critical Resistance"; Sound It Out, The Victoria and Albert Museum
Palermo, SF; 2013; "On Hugh Davies"; Full of Noises Festival, Barrow-in-Furness.
Palermo, SF; 2013; "I Can't Believe It's not Music: the Musical Dimension of Hugh Davies's Sound Art"; The Royal Society of Music Student Conference; University of Southampton;
Palermo, SF; 2012; "Sounds Heard: the Environmental Ethics and Aesthetics of Hugh Davies's Music"; Ecomusicologies, New Orleans, USA;
Palermo, SF; 2012; "Hugh Davies: Electronic Music Pioneer"; Sound Cases; The British Library, London;
Palermo, SF; 2012; "Hugh Davies's Shozygs"; New Music in Britain; Canterbury Christ Church University;
Palermo, SF; 2010; "In and Out the Concert Hall Conventions: Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hugh Davies"; TAGS Weekend; Bangor University, Wales;
Palermo, SF; 2010; "English Experimental Music of the Late 1960s and Early 1970s"; International Symposium on Experimental Music; Coventry University;
Palermo, SF; 2010; "Hugh Davies's Shozyg"; Systematic Musicology Conference Series; Cambridge University;
