International Summer School

Chania (Crete, Greece) · 27-31 July 2026

​​

Programme

 

Monday 27 July

 

14:00 Opening session: presentation of Festum π, introduction to the summer school, and presentation of participants and instructors.

16:00-17:30 · Katerina Fotinaki · Phrasing melody while marking tempo: the Boléro example.

 

Tuesday 28 July

 

9:30-11:00 · Théodora Psychoyou · General principles of metrical and proportional time (from Antiquity to Ars Nova and the Renaissance).

11:30-12:30 · Lorenda Ramou · Temporal flow in Stockhausen’s Klavierstück X.

14:00-15:00 · Bruno Mantovani · String quartets and compositional approach, in connection with the evening concert – shared session with the mathematics programme.

16:00-17:30 · Katerina Fotinaki · Upbeat, groupings, decomposition, and the perception of tempo. The aid of Konnakol. Finding the “one”: Xenakis’ Jonchaies challenge.

 

Wednesday 29 July

 

9:30-11:00 · Théodora Psychoyou · Quantifying time and its paradoxes: the Baroque paradigm shift.

11:30-12:30 · Claude Ledoux · Gamelan inspired works by Messiaen, Boulez, Ledoux

14:30-15:30 · Lorenda Ramou · Transformations of rhythmic motives in Beethoven’s piano Sonatas – work in progress.

16:00-17:30 · Katerina Fotinaki · Breathing and the perception of time.

17:30-18 :30 · Pedagogies of rhythm, roundtable · Alcyone Malekaki, Dora Manitaki, Claude Ledoux, Lorenda Ramou, Katerina Fotinaki, Théodora Psychoyou.

 

Thursday 30 July

 

9:15-11:15 · Participants’ Forum I · research, artistic work, or work in progress presentations

11:30-13:00 · Participants’ Forum II

14:00-15:30 · Participants’ Forum III

16:00-17:30 · Katerina Fotinaki · Working with a silent metronome: the Invisible Percussion Challenge.

 

Friday 31 July

 

9:30-11:00 · Théodora Psychoyou · Measured and psychological time, and the economy of musical score and space, Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa example.

11:30-12:30 · Dora Manitaki · Rhythm as Emotion: Shaping Character and Perception in Brahms’s Fantasies op. 116.

14:00-15:30 · Katerina Fotinaki · Elastic phrasing. Dragging/Rushing to create tension. Back to Boléro.

16:00-17:00 · collective synthesis & evaluation · musical time between theory, analysis, performance, embodiment, and creation.

​​

----

​

What is musical time?

​

How is it measured, organised, perceived, remembered, transmitted, and embodied? How do performers, composers, listeners, and scholars experience the temporal dimensions of music? How have conceptions of rhythm evolved across cultures, historical periods, and artistic practices?

​

These questions lie at the heart of Rhythmologies, an international summer school in music and musicology organised within the framework of Festum π, a festival dedicated to the intersections of music, mathematics, science, and artistic creation.

​

Bringing together students, doctoral researchers, performers, composers, educators, and scholars, the school offers a unique opportunity to explore musical time from multiple perspectives. Through lectures, workshops, analytical sessions, artistic encounters, and collective discussions, participants will engage with rhythm not merely as a technical component of musical structure, but as a fundamental human experience situated at the crossroads of cognition, aesthetics and history of music and science, embodiment, and creativity.

​

The programme will address topics including:

· histories and theories of rhythm and metre;

· musical time and quantitative thought;

· temporality, memory, and perception;

· rhythm, gesture, and embodiment;

· musical analysis and performance practices;

· composition and creative approaches to time;

· notation, representation, and transmission;

· relationships between music, mathematics, and the organisation of temporal experience.

​

Particular attention will be given to the dialogue between scholarly research and artistic practice. The school will therefore combine academic and creative approaches through lectures, seminars, analytical workshops, practical sessions devoted to listening, movement, and rhythm, as well as encounters with artists participating in Festum π.

​

Participants will notably have the opportunity to attend a rehearsal and discussion with renowned pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, exploring questions of interpretation, ensemble interaction, listening, and the construction of musical time in performance.

​​

​

Instructors

​

· Katerina Fotinaki (musician, singer-songwriter and musicologist, University of Paris 8)

· Claude Ledoux (composer and music theorist, Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris - CNSMDP

· Théodora Psychoyou (musicologist and music theorist, Sorbonne University)

· Lorenda Ramou (musicologist and concert pianist, University of Ioannina)

 

Additional contributions from:

​

· Katia and Marielle Labèque (concert pianists)

· Alcyone Malekaki (pianist, music teacher in public schools, Chania and Cairo)

· Dora Manitaki (pianist and music teacher – Mag.Art. Mozarteum · Salzburg)

· Cédric Villani (mathematician, Claude Bernard University Lyon I – Scientific Director of Festum π)

​​

​​