DrAlisa Bernhard

Alisa Yuko Bernhard studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, graduating with Bachelor and Master (Research) degrees in piano performance, and a PhD in musicology. Alisa's research is informed by her love of making and analysing music and by her interest in the first-person perspective, particularly that of professional practitioners. Her Master's dissertation focused on the relationship between musical "works" by J.S. Bach and Chopin, and individual performers/performances, through analysis of tempo fluctuation in recordings.

The relationship between music and dance of the Western performing tradition was the starting-point for her PhD project. The dissertation is a phenomenological exploration of musicians' and dancers' experience of musical listening, described as an embodied, temporal, kinaesthetic process in which our imagination plays a greater role than usually acknowledged. In it, the work of Vladimir Jankélévitch and Jean-Paul Sartre provide ways of thinking that help balance between the necessity of perception (i.e. we need to see/hear/feel bodies, sound, kinaesthesia) in order for music to "be there", and the idea that music is something "beyond", or in-between, sounds.

Alisa has been a staff member at the Sydney Conservatorium since 2016, mainly tutoring Harmony and Analysis but also teaching music history and musicological research, and became Associate Lecturer (Musicology) in 2024.

As a solo pianist and chamber musician, Alisa has performed locally as well as in Italy, France, Poland and Japan, and was a prizewinner in a number of national and international competitions.