Neil Thomas Smith is a researcher and composer, teaching at the University of Edinburgh and the Open College of the Arts. Between 2018 and 2022 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music, where his research focussed on orchestras’ attempts at spatial innovation, both inside the concert hall and beyond. Neil has also worked on German contemporary music and sociological examinations of ‘emerging’ composers, with articles appearing in journals including Music & Letters, Cultural Sociology, Contemporary Music Review, the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Tempo, and the British Journal of Sociology. His first monograph, a critical companion to the composer Mathias Spahlinger, was published in 2021; while a debut disc of chamber music, Stop Motion Music, was released in 2023.
Peter Peters is endowed professor in the innovation of classical music and associate professor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University. His current research combines a life-long passion for music with an interest in how artistic practices can be a context for doing academic and practice-oriented research. In previous years, he worked on an ethnography of a project at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam aimed at building a baroque organ for the twenty-first century. More recently, his research focuses on innovating classical music practices, especially symphonic music. Together with Stefan Rosu, director of Philzuid (South Netherlands Philharmonic), he developed the research lines in the Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music: the role of classical music and its value for society; the ways in which the relationship between performers of classical music, such as symphony orchestras and their audience is mediated; and the ways in which classical music practices contribute to the preservation of our cultural and social sounding heritage.
Karoly Molina is currently a researcher and support staff for the Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music, a collaboration between Maastricht University, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences and the South Netherlands Philharmonic (philzuid). Karoly completed her BA in English literature at Texas A&M University and her MA at Maastricht University. Before her work at MCICM, Karoly taught English language and literature and worked as a translator.