PhD defense on Singing in Malaysia

I look forward to serving as an external examiner in April 2026 for a PhD defense at the Institute of Music, UCSI University, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This will be for Huang Yichen’s PhD in Music Performance, with a dissertation titled Schubert’s Two Wanderings: An Interpretive Approach from a Singer’s Perspective.

Huang’s dissertation systematically examines two of Franz Schubert’s famous art song cycles, Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795) and Winterreise (D. 911), using a practice-led and performer-centred approach.

It is exciting to see what is being achieved in music in Malaysia, particularly in the area of performance-based artistic research. This will be my second PhD defense at USCI University across recent months, and my third defense (as external examiner) for a Malaysian doctoral candidate across the past year, so I feel I am getting a direct sense of Malaysia’s growing importance in the music field.

While western classical art music has its roots in European heritage, there can be no doubt that across recent years many Asian countries have fully embraced this tradition with a deep appreciation that will surely be sustained long into the future.  

 

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