Biography
Christian Vassilev is a philosopher of music whose research bridges phenomenology, semiotics, and the humanities. As an FWO Postdoctoral Fellow at KU Leuven, he investigates how early musicology and psychology—as well as early 20th-century musicians—approached problems of musical experience and performance that remain relevant today. His work situates musical creativity within broader philosophical and psychological contexts.
Christian earned his PhD in Musicology at the National Academy of Music “Prof. Pancho Vladigerov” in 2023, where he also completed his Master’s degree.
His research has been published in Philosophy of Music Education Review, Acta Semiotica Fennica, and Bulgarian Musicology, among other journals. He has presented at conferences in Greece, Germany, and Bulgaria, and is a member of several professional organizations. Alongside his research, he edits the Musical Philosophy series at Riva Publishing and has taught courses in musical aesthetics, music psychology, and philosophy.
Research
musical phenomenology, semiotics, music education, psychoanalysis, music psychology
Publications
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“The Whole City Must Never Cease Singing”: Plato and the Community of the Musical Nomos
In: Philosophy of Music Education Review
Abstract
This paper explores the fundamental tenets of Plato’s philosophy of education, particularly his views on a practice of great educational potential: communal musical participation. According to Plato, music can attune the individual and the community to cosmic harmony and this, in turn, is the only way to form and maintain a community. The paper explores how the concepts of ethos and nomos are utilized to explain music’s role in community cohesion. It argues that Plato’s understanding of the power of immediate and pre-reflective participation in music can provide valuable insight for contemporary philosophy of music education. The concept of nomos, in particular, allows music educators to take this frame of thought to better understand the role of music in creating communities.
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Methodological Foundations of Eero Tarasti's Musical Semiotics
Semiotic Society of Finland, Helsinki
Abstract
The book is an introduction to Eero Tarasti’s works on music, as well as musical semiotics in general. It covers a wide range of sources from multiple disciplinary fields in order to familiarize the reader with the basic language and common references of semiotic inquiries in music. Starting with the basics of structural and Peircian semiotics, theories of discourse, topic theory and others, and their application to music, the book moves on to discuss their interpretation in Tarasti’s decade-long oeuvre.
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Музикално-философски анализ на феномена „цялост“ в музиката. Феноменологически подход
Abstract
The thesis examines the phenomenon of “wholeness” in music from a musical-phenomenological perspective, while raising the question of the methodological foundations which make possible music phenomenology’s approach to this phenomenon. The main thesis of the dissertation is that in order to perceive wholeness in music, the I must first identify with it. Musical experience suggests that wholes in music have no musical meaning if the I perceiving them does not identify with them. In this identification, however, the I and music are no longer separate – for example, as poles in a subject-object structure – but are one. Hence, a musical-phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon of “wholeness” in music reveals wholeness not as a property of music as “object,” but as a property of the relation between I and music. Musical wholeness is the wholeness of the relation between I and music. The thesis confirms this position in the lifeworld testimonies of a number of prominent nineteenth- and twentieth-century musical practitioners and theoreticians, and then proceeds to a phenomenological analysis in order to highlight musical wholeness as a fundamental given of musical phenomenology.
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Organic Wholeness in Heinrich Schenkers's Lehre
In: Българско музикознание
Abstract
The theme of organic wholeness in music is central to Heinrich Schenker’s theory. According to the early Schenker, music is not organic, since it lacks causality and logic; yet its entire effect rests on its imitation of natural organicity. In his later works, the theorist perceives music as an organic whole founded upon natural laws. Throughout the development of his theory of wholeness, Schenker conceives of organicity as an “objective” given, essentially independent of any conscious or subjective activity. Consciousness, he argues, can only contaminate the organic whole; therefore, if the composer or performer wishes to grasp musical wholeness, they must approach music instinctively rather than consciously. Instinct, however, is also naturally determined—it is a gift and, ultimately, a matter of genius, but a genius grounded in the laws inherent in objectively pre-given nature. Thus, the role of the I in relation to music—the composer, performer, or listener (including the analyst)—is reduced to the “passive” witnessing of music’s immanent organicity. If a subject perceives wholeness in music, it is the result of their complete (instinctive) “absorption” in the organic whole.
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The Phenomenon of Musical Identification. A View From Heidegger's Early Phenomenology
In: Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology
Abstract
The starting point of the following article are statements by various prominent musical performers of the 20th century who have testified to the life-experience of musical identification, i.e. the experience of unity and oneness with music. The purpose of the article is to explore the phenomenological implications of this experience on the basis of Martin Heidegger’s early phenomenological work. The article compares Heidegger’s early view of phenomenal givenness with that of Edmund Husserl. While Husserl sees phenomenal givenness as constituted by (transcendental) consciousness, Heidegger finds primary givenness in the resonance (Mitschwingen) between the I and its lifeworld. I argue that in Heidegger’s early phenomenology it is not the subject, but rather the relatio between I and world, which “constitutes” givenness. This viewpoint allows for the exploration of musical identification as a life-experience. Musical identification suspends the difference between subject and object. In musical identification, it is the relation between “I” and music, which is constitutive of both. Thus, music cannot be adequately grasped in phenomenological terms if it is regarded simply as an object, which is the premise of more traditional phenomenological approaches to music such as Roman Ingarden’s and Mikel Dufrenne’s. Ingarden and Dufrenne both position music at a distance from the subject, as something to be explored in its objective characteristics, without presupposing the constitutive relation between them. Contrary to them, Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht, Günther Anders and Ilya Yonchev all recognize that the subject-object divide is insufficient for the exploration of musical experience. However, while Eggebrecht ultimately remains within the subject-object-dichotomy, Anders and Yonchev both develop the idea of musical Mitsein, or Being-with-music, which dispenses with the subject-object premise altogether and interprets musical life-experience as a mode of Being within which the sense of the I and musical sense coincide.
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Antheil and Musical Wholeness in the Work of A. B. Marx
In: Almanac - National Academy of Music ``Professor Pancho Vladigerov''
Abstract
A major theme in Adolf Bernhard Marx’s work is the idea that music has sense only to one who “participates” in it. According to Marx, musical Antheil – i.e. participatory belonging-to – is at the foundation of every musical activity, such as composing, performing, or listening (including listening analytically and critically), in its authenticity. The German word “Ant(h)eil” reflects on the participatory nature of this relation – the person or I, who relates to music, “has a part” in music, is fundamentally partial to it. In Marx’s thought, musical Antheil embraces both the spiritual and the sensual part of the person, i.e. it engages the totality of the person. Conversely, music also has an “inner”, spiritual side, its content or Idee, and an “outer”, sensual side, its form. The musical whole is, according to Marx, the unity of musical content and form, which, however, always involves the Antheil of the I to this given whole. Thus, Antheil is a fundamental aspect of musical wholeness itself – it is only within the I, which participates in music and is “partial” to it, that music can be “whole”. Thus, Marx’s account of musical Antheil is arguably a reflection of what in the following text is called musical identification – the living, immediate state of identification between the I and music. Musical identification is a primary condition for understanding musical content and, by extension, musical form. Musical wholeness is not just a characteristic of music itself, but a characteristic of the relation between the I and music.
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Methodological Foundations of Eero Tarasti's Musical Semiotics
Semiotic Society of Finland, Helsinki
Abstract
The book is an introduction to Eero Tarasti’s works on music, as well as musical semiotics in general. It covers a wide range of sources from multiple disciplinary fields in order to familiarize the reader with the basic language and common references of semiotic inquiries in music. Starting with the basics of structural and Peircian semiotics, theories of discourse, topic theory and others, and their application to music, the book moves on to discuss their interpretation in Tarasti’s decade-long oeuvre.
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Musical development and music education
Riva, Sofia
Abstract
Musical Development and Music Education (Riva, 2021) offers an experimentally grounded psychological overview of how children develop musically and how that knowledge can sharpen classroom practice. The authors frame the book around two pressing pedagogical realities—the gap between teachers’ experiences and children’s musical worlds, and policy-driven regulation of schooling—arguing that developmental music psychology can orient curricula and methods more reliably. The volume spans eight chapters: two methodological and six thematic. It introduces core cognitive perspectives (Chomsky, Piaget, Bruner; the mind–brain problem) and contrasts them with behaviorist approaches to learning and classroom management to situate today’s research landscape. It then synthesizes stage-based models of musical growth (Gardner; Swanwick & Tillman; Hargreaves) and theories of children’s musical thinking (Serafine; Bamberger), highlighting implications for instruction. Early musical perception—from prenatal to infancy—is mapped across spectral (pitch, scales, harmony) and temporal (rhythm, meter) structures. A central concept is musical enculturation: how culture narrows perception and how education can broaden children’s “code” repertoires across Western and traditional idioms, a question with particular relevance for Bulgaria. The closing chapters review how training shapes competence and how musicians differ cognitively from non-musicians, the links between musical ability and language (phonological orientation, dyslexia), and mechanisms of musical emotion across ages. Intended for educators and researchers, the book functions as a compact guide to current evidence with direct classroom relevance.
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Social projections in the music classroom
Издателство НМА "Проф. Панчо Владигеров'', София