Sophia Svarna is conducting postdoctoral research at the Laboratory of Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology of the Department of Music Studies of the University of Athens (2022- ), entitled “Musical encounters in the Mediterranean: past and present”, focusing her research interest on the historical, ethnographic and musical understanding of the Mediterranean, as a timeless space of musical and cultural encounters and coexistence. Her doctoral dissertation entitled “Greek Musicians ‘in between’. Early Music and Tropical Traditions of the Mediterranean. An Ethnographic Study”, which was carried out in the relevant Department (supervisor: Professor Maria Papapavlou), concerns the ethnographic study of the encounter between Eastern and Western musical traditions in the field of contemporary recording and concert activity of Greek and other European early music groups. As the first recipient of the Schwarz Fellowship for Research in Music, she carried out a research project based on the collections of the Gennadius Library entitled “Early Soundscapes of the Mediterranean. A cultural and musical understanding of space, time and its people”. Since 2004 she has been teaching as a permanent music teacher in secondary education.

Sofia Svarna

Postdoctoral Researcher