The Faculty of Interpretation, Composition, and Theoretical Music Studies, through the 2025 ICMA–UNAGE internal research grants, is organising the international conference Contemporary Teaching Approaches and Research Directions in Specialised Music Education, which will be held in the Symposion Hall of the University’s Artes Building on 11–12 November 2025, beginning at 9.30am.

Keynote Speakers

The conference features three keynote speakers whose research and professional experience have advanced specialised music education and allied fields. Their perspectives will enrich the programme; brief biographies follow.

Oleg Garaz
Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music, Cluj-Napoca

Oleg Garaz is a musicologist, critic, essayist, and writer. Born in the Republic of Moldova, he began his musical studies in Soroca, moved to Romania in 1990, studied musicology in Cluj-Napoca, and later earned a PhD in Music at the National University of Music Bucharest. He is Associate Professor (habilitated to supervise doctoral research) at the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music. His work spans research, teaching, and cultural journalism, with numerous conference presentations, broadcasts, and publications. His books include The Tools of Musicology (Eikon, 2022), Music Genres: The Idea of an Archetypal Anthropology (Eikon, 2016), The Canon of European Music: Ideas, Hypotheses, Images (Eikon, 2015), Exercises in Musicology (Media Musica, 2014), the interview volume Musical Poetics in Conversation (Casa Cărții de Știință, 2003), Being and Tempo (with Iulian Tănase and Mitoș Micleușanu; Nemira, 2019), and the psychological-prose volume Territoria (Nemira, 2018).

Cecilia Oinas
Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki

Cecilia Oinas is a Finnish–Hungarian Lecturer in Music Theory, scholar, and classically trained pianist at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. Her research examines the intersections of analysis, performance, and ensemble communication. In 2018–2019 she was a postdoctoral researcher (senior scientist) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz; she has been a visiting scholar at the Orpheus Institute, Ghent (2011), and at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York (2009). Her publications appear in Music Theory Online, Music & Practice, SMT-V, and Music Performance Research, with chapters in Musik-Konzepte, Perspectives on the Music of György Kurtág: Performance, Language and Memory, and The Oxford Handbook of Musical Variation. She has presented papers, lecture-recitals, and workshops internationally, including in the United States, Canada, Austria, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, Italy, Estonia, Poland, Singapore, Croatia, Iceland, Hungary, and Finland. As a pianist, she focuses on chamber music and Lieder. She also serves as an associate editor for Music Theory Online, a peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Music Theory.

Thomas Solak
Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen

Thomas Solak trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, first as a pianist (1989) and later in music theory (1993), and has also pursued studies in programming and software design. After work as a performing pianist and fifteen years as an organist – alongside activity as a composer and arranger – his focus shifted to higher-education teaching. In 2000 he was appointed Associate Professor of Music Theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where he is Coordinator of the Music Theory Department and teaches harmony, counterpoint, analysis, communication, theory pedagogy, and instrumentation across a wide range of styles and periods. Alongside his teaching, Solak has developed pedagogical tools, including HarmonyLab (1998), Rytmerepetiteur (1999), the analysis typeface Amadeus (2001), the DKDM Eartraining Suite (2002–2024), FormIllustrator (2004–2010), and the DKDM Distance Learning Programme (2010–2017). His publications include Function Analysis – A Guide to Experience-based Analysis (2019), the edited volume The Lectures by Yngve Tredé – 20th-Century Music until 1945 (2021), and the forthcoming Sequences – the Seductive Element of Harmony (expected 2026). Recent projects include Beethoven Reconstructed with pianist Emil Gryesten (2021–2023), supported by the Danish Ministry of Culture, and the networked performance Longing for the Impossible for the Moment it is Real (Pulsar Festival, 2017).

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Scientific Committee: Associate Professor Oleg Garaz • Associate Professor Thomas Solak • Lecturer in Music Theory Cecilia Oinas • Professor Laura Vasiliu • Associate Professor Loredana Iațeșen • Associate Professor Gabriela Vlahopol

Conference Organising Team: Lecturer Mihaela Georgiana Balan • Lecturer Lucian Cheran • Lecturer Ona Anghel • Assistant Professor Mihaela Rusu • Doctoral Candidate Oana Zamfir

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The conference is held as part of the research project MUSIC-INTER-CONNECT: Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Strategies within Theoretical Courses in Music Education, funded by the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research in Art at the George Enescu National University of Arts in Iași, through the University’s 2025 internal research grants. icma.arteiasi.ro

Project Director: Lecturer Mihaela Georgiana Balan