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 in 2015, 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 V&A to discuss his research. In 2012 he co-curated the Sho-Zyg exhibition at Goldsmiths College, which saw some of Davies's instruments and archival items displayed, as well as the performance and presentation of some of his pieces.
English, Italian
Dr Palermo is the module leader for MUS1096 Musicianship and Production, MUS2097 Recording and Production, MUS2057 Music and Culture, MUS3097 Recording Project, and MUS3055 Independent Project.
He welcomes students who are interested in sonic art, electronic experimental music, critical organology, and cultural studies.
Dr Palermo is interested in developing further the scholarship on the work of his former teacher Hugh Davies. He is currently concentrating on developing a critical organology of Davies’s invented instruments and a more nuanced understanding of the participative listening that some of his compositions entailed. He is also interested more broadly in the philosophy of sound and music, in particular in discourses pertaining to the ontology, aesthetics, politics and ethics of sound art of the late twentieth century and twenty first century.
Publications:
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; forthcoming; "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; 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;
