About

Theodora Serbanescu-Martin is a pianist, musicologist, and interdisciplinary scholar whose work bridges performance, literary studies, material culture, and embodiment. She has a PhD in Music and Sound Studies at Cornell University and holds dual BA degrees in Music and English from University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation, Fashionable Concealments: Myth, Material, and Method in Nineteenth-Century Pianism, examines how Romantic ideals of expression and authenticity were shaped through bodily discipline, technology, and material culture, and forms the basis of her forthcoming book Fashioning Pianism. Her scholarship appears or is forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Arrangement Studies, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, and other venues. As a performer, she specializes in Romantic repertoire and historically informed performance, with appearances across Europe and the US. Current projects include recordings and performances centered on Hélène de Montgeroult and Liszt.

Music

As a performer, Theodora identifies as a “Romantic pianist,” using the term to describe an approach grounded in nineteenth-century aesthetics of flexibility, virtuosity, improvisation, and expressive risk, while remaining critically attentive to Romanticism’s ideological afterlives. Her performances do not claim historical “authenticity,” but instead treat Romantic materials as living, mediated practices shaped by context, technology, and embodiment. She is particularly interested in how visual, literary, and material dimensions— dress, gesture, space, furniture, and staging — shape musical meaning.

Videos

Audio

Upcoming groupmuses

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  Warehouse

  Two Piano Extravaganza with Theodora and Miles

  Sunday, May 31 3:45 PM PDT

  • Neighborhood: Half Moon Bay
  • Instruments: 2 pianos
  • Price: $35 tickets ($28 for Supermusers)

  Spots available

Programs

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