Luzia Aurora Rocha

Luzia Aurora Rocha studied Musicology in Lisbon (Portugal) and Innsbruck (Austria), earning a PhD in Musicology from the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa in 2012 with a dissertation on Portuguese Baroque Musical Iconography (Ceramic Tiles). She is currently a researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music (CESEM), with part-time teaching duties at the Department of Musicology of the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (NOVA FCSH); she also coordinates the Musical Iconography Thematic Line at CESEM and the ARLAC-IMS Work Group “Musical Iconography and its Overseas Connections”. She was recently appointed to the Steering Committee of the Study Group on Musical Iconography of the IMS (International Musicological Society). Her work spans the fields of Musicology, Museology, Musical Iconography, Organology, Semiotics, Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage, Museum Collections in Portugal and abroad and Cultural Studies with a focus on issues of production, reception, cataloguing of sources and cultural transfer. She has taught at several higher education and university institutions (Instituto Piaget, INUAF, Metropolitan Orchestra, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa, NOVA FCSH, Universidade Autónoma) in the areas of Music History, Musical Iconography, Organology, Pedagogy and Didactics and Museology. Luzia Aurora Rocha holds a Merit Prize from NOVA University (1999) and benefited from a PhD grant (FCT, 2006) and two post-doctoral research grants (The Orient Museum/Foundation, 2015; CESEM, 2017) before she applied successfully for a contract as a researcher (2019-2025). Rocha is the author of “Música no Museu. Catálogo de Instrumentos Musicais e Iconografia Musical do Museu Municipal Carlos Reis / Music in the Museum. Musical Instruments and Musical Iconography Catalogue of Carlos Reis Municipal Museum” (2024), “Cantate Dominum Música e Espiritualidade no Azulejo Barroco” (Colibri, 2015), “Ópera e Caricatura: o Teatro de S. Carlos na obra de Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro” (Colibri, 2010), co-author of “Musical Images: Iconographic-Musical Itinerary” (Althum, 2019), editor of “Perspectives on Music, Sound and Musicology II. Sounding Images: Sights, Sounds and Sensualities” (2024), “Iconografia Musical: Autores de Países Ibero-Americanos e das Caraíbas” (2015) and co-editor of “Iconografia Musical: Organologia, Construtores e Prática Musical em Diálogo” (2017), “Iconografia Musical: Temas Portugueses” (2020). She developed the Portuguese Musical Iconography data base “IconoMus”. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed and web-of-science indexed journals such as Acta Musicologica, Studia Musicologica, Journal of Musicological Research, Imago Musicae, Music in Art and Musica Hodie. She presented her work abroad, by invitation and as a keynote speaker in Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, USA, Spain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China and Japan. She is a regular scientific consultant for international boards – in Europe (also for EU – European Union and FWO) and Latin America – in the fields of Arts, Culture and Heritage.