About
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Issa Aji (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate and assistant instructor in music theory at the University of Texas at Austin. He received a Bachelor of Music in music composition from Rowan University before completing a Master of Music in music theory at Temple University. Issa's research revolves around intersections of musical expressivity, emotion, and affect. His work, which demonstrates how various forms of musical feeling are mediated through the gesturing body, draws on a number of subjects, including theories of musical and non-musical emotion, affect, gesture, atmosphere, phenomenology, intersubjectivity, and cultural studies.
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Issa's forthcoming dissertation explores the Arab concept of á¹arab—understood as both a style of music and a mode of heightened affective engagement—through the words and lived experiences of Arab Americans. Funded by the Presser Foundation's Graduate Music Award, this work combines music analysis and ethnography to develop new ways of ​understanding musical affect as a kinesthetic, intersubjective, and cultural phenomenon.​
Issa has presented research at various regional, national, and international conferences, including the Music Theory Society of New York State, the Society for Music Theory, and the International Society for Research on Emotion. His research has been recognized by the 2022 Patricia Carpenter Award and the 2022 Irna Priore Prize for Student Research, and his publications appear in Theory and Practice (forthcoming), European Perspectives on Music Education, and on the History of Music Theory Blog.
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As a bassist, Issa regularly performs with the Ghandoura Band (pictured bottom left), an eight-piece Arab music ensemble comprised of musicians from across the Arab world.
