We use cookies on this site to enhance your experience.
By selecting “Accept” and continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies.
I earned my MMus degree in musicology from the University of Glasgow School of Culture and Creative Arts, and my PhD degree in musicology from the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. My dissertation, Performance as Translation: Virtuosity in Musical Modernity, contributed both a revised history of virtuosity as changing aesthetic concept and pianistic practice, and a theory of translation to the study of musical interpretation. My work can be found recently published in The British Journal of Aesthetics. I’ve also presented my research at several conferences including annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group Conference, and the International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music. I have served on the American Musicological Society Council as a graduate representative of the New York State – St. Lawrence Chapter and currently serve on the Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group Executive Committee.
I am joining Laurier as Contract Teaching Faculty teaching Music in the Baroque Period. Before coming to Laurier, I was a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Guelph School of Fine Art & Music and a Teaching Fellow in Humanities at the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation’s Teaching Assistants’ Training Program at the University of Toronto.
My research interests are centred around the embodied knowledge and authorship of the musical performer in different historical and aesthetic contexts. I am currently developing a series of articles exploring this topic, including one that provides new critical English translations of Franz Liszt’s book Des Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie to explore Hungarian nationalism and music together with his depictions of Romani improvised performances, an article on the aesthetics of French musical modernism, technology, and futurism in the interpretation of Maurice Ravel’s piano music, and another on transnationalism and classicism in Spanish music.
- Altman, I., and Labbe Phelan, C. “Musical Performance as Translation: A Hermeneutics.” The British Journal of Aesthetics (April 13, 2026). https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayag001.
My teaching is based on a philosophy of collaboration, reflective practice, and critical inquiry. My classroom is an academic community based on shared accountability and curiosity, and I look forward to guiding students toward wider music-historical knowledge co-created through productive conversation and listening (musical and otherwise)!