WRITING
As a practitioner-scholar, Ho integrates modes of thinking, performing, and creating that constantly and cyclically inform each other, resulting in different outputs that revolve around common foci. Winning the Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award for Articles (2022) and SMT Post-1945 Music Analysis Interest Group Publication Award (2022), Ho draws on gesture studies, embodied cognition, and performance analysis to understand how the body is involved in creating meaning, through lenses of non-Western cultures, race, and gender studies. By creating new, performer-oriented analytical methodologies, Ho provides tools to visualize and articulate performers’ bodily wisdom that are often overlooked, but lies at the center rather than the margins of musical experience. Specializing in the areas of historical recording research, new music, and NIME, her writings are published in journals such as Music Theory Online, Women and Music, La Revue Musicale OICRM, Naxos Musicology International, edited volumes Debussy’s Resonances (University of Rochester Press, 2018) and Topos of Music III (Springer Press, 2018), as well as in New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), international Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA), and Mathematics and Computation in Music (MCM) conference proceedings.
Publications
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
“absorbingly and evocatively written, the article is a model of performer-scholar synthesis” (Society for Music Theory Newsletter, Vol. 46 No. 1 February 2023)
“Ho foregrounds the performing body and asks incisive questions about what it can tell us about musical structure.” (SMT Post-1945 Music Analysis Interest Group, 2022 Publication Award Winner Announcement)
Doust, Ian, Michael D. Hirschhorn, and Jocelyn Ho. “Trigonometric identities, linear algebra and computer algebra,” American Mathematical Monthly, 112, pp. 155-164 (2005).
Book Chapters
Ho, J. “Analyzing and Composing with the Performing Body” in The Topos of Music III: Gestures: Musical Multiverse Ontologies, edited by Guerino Mazzola (Gewerbestrasse: Springer, 2018), pp. 1263-1283.
Ho, J. “Debussy and late-Romantic Performing Practices: The Piano Rolls of 1912” in Debussy’s Resonance, edited by François de Médicis and Steven Huebner (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2018), pp. 513-561.
Peer-reviewed conference proceedings
Ho, J. “From 2D to 3D: Using Geometry and Group Theory to Model Motivic Structure in Musical Composition.” Mathematics and Computation in Music: Third International Conference, MCM 2011 Proceedings (2011), 342-345.
Opinion pieces
Ho, J., “Up Close and Personal: Connecting the Body in Concert Performance,” Naxos Musicology International (2020).
Scores
Ho, J, and Margaret Schedel. “Housework Lock (Her) Down.” Women and Music, Vol. 25 (2021).
Invited Talks
Keynote presentation-performance
“Sheng for piano and mobile phones,” Sound Visualization and Data Sonification Hackathon, Spotify NYC (2016)
INVITED TALKS AND PANELS
“Intersecting Musical and Cultural Affordances: Transforming Everyday Tools Into New Musical Instruments.” Invited speaker at the Louise Hanson-Dyer Colloquium Series at University of Melbourne (2021)
“Performance with technology from a feminist perspective.” Invited Panelist. CCRMA at Stanford University (2021)
“Debussy the Romantic pianist: an interpretation according to the 1912 piano rolls” lecture-recital, invited guest performer in Fugitive Resonance Festival, Barnes Hall, Cornell University (2019)
Ho, J. and Margaret Schedel. “Women’s Labor” invited guest talk and demonstration, Center for Computer Research in Music Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University (2019)
“Sheng—mobile phone as musical instruments” presentation and performance, Art|Sci Sound + Science 2.0, UCLA California NanoSystems Institute (2019)
Ho, J., Margaret Schedel, and Matthew Blessing. “Women’s Labor” LASER talk, UCLA Design and Media Arts Art|Sci Gallery (2019)
“Emulating Cherubino’s Sexual Awakening: A Bodily-Based Approach to Adelina Patti’s Voi Che Sapete,” invited guest speaker at Historical Performance Practice Unit, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2018)
“Synaesthesia Playground” LASER talk, UCLA Art|Sci Lab (2016)
“Analyzing and Composing with the Performing Body,” Sydney Conservatorium of Music Musicology Colloquium Series (2016)
“From 2D to 3D: Using Mathematics to Conceptualise Musical Structure as Three-Dimensional Geometrical Objects,” invited guest speaker-performer lecture-recital at Music Colloquium Series, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, MN, USA (2010)
Invited guest panelist at “The Science of Embodiment” Roundtable, University of Minnesota, MN, USA (2010)
Academic Conference Activity
Panels organized
Panel Organizer for “Performance, Gesture, Electronics,” UCLA Music Performance Studies Today Symposium (2021)
PAPERS
Ho, J., Margaret Schedel, and Matthew Blessing. “Revaluing Women’s Labor Through Material Engagement with Musical Instruments Built From Domestic Tools,” International Symposium of Electronic Arts (2020)
Schedel, M., Matthew Blessing, and Jocelyn Ho. “Advanced Synthesis :Reimagining Instruments and Speakers.” United States Institute for Theater Technology 2020
“Debussy the Romantic pianist: A historically-informed interpretation of Debussy’s works according to the 1912 piano rolls” lecture-recital, Correct, But Not Beautiful Performance: Deciphering the Hidden Messages in 19th-Century Notation Symposium, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2018)
Ho, J., Margaret Schedel, and Matthew Blessing. “Creating NIMEs from Domestic Tools.” New Interfaces for Musical Instruments Conference, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2019)
Ho, J., Margaret Schedel, and Matthew Blessing. “Women’s Labor: An Installation and Concert of New and Old “Feminine” Instruments” presentation. Alliance of Women in Media Arts and Technology Conference, University of California at Santa Barbara (2019)
“Emulating Cherubino’s Sexual Awakening: A Bodily-Based Approach to Adelina Patti’s Voi Che Sapete,” Society of Music Theory Annual Conference, San Antonio (2018)
“Emulating Cherubino’s Sexual Awakening: A Bodily-Based Approach to Adelina Patti’s Voi Che Sapete,” Perspectives in Historically Informed Practices in Music Conference, University of Oxford (2018)
“Everyone a rockstar: Using mobile-based technology in live musical performance,” co-presenter with Andrew Petersen in Reject: JS EU Javascript conference, Berlin Radialsystem V (2015)
“Musical Structure as Movement: A Bodily-Based Gestural Analysis of Toru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch II,” Society of Music Theory Annual Conference, Milwaukee (2014)
“Metamorphosis as Movement: A Bodily-Based Gestural Analysis of Toru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch II,” Musicological Society of Australia and New Zealand Musicological Society Joint Conference, Griffith University (2013)
Special Mention for the Student Paper Prize
“Debussy and Late-Romantic Performing Practices: An Investigation of Debussy’s Piano Rolls of 1913,” Colloque International: L’héritage de Claude Debussy, Observatoire interdisciplinaire de creation et de recherche en musique, University of Montreal (2012)
“Debussy and Late-Romantic Performing Practices: An Investigation of Debussy’s Piano Rolls of 1913,” Stony Brook University Graduate Music Student Symposium (2011)
“Using Geometry and Group Theory to Model Motivic Structure,” Poster at the 3rd International Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music, Institute de Recherche et Coordinatorion Acoustic/Musique, IRCAM (2011)
“From 2D to 3D: Conceptualising Musical Structure as Three-Dimensional Objects Through Mathematics,” the International Conference on the Image, UCLA (2010)
“From 2D to 3D: Conceptualising Musical Structure as Three-Dimensional Objects Through Mathematics” lecture-performance, Summer Workshop on Music, Pattern and Mathematics, Institute for Music in Human and Social Development (University of Edinburgh and Queen’s University), East Sussex, UK (2010)