Franziska Schroeder is a saxophonist, theorist, and a Professor for Music and Cultures at the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen's University Belfast. She is a Fellow of the HEA (Higher Education Academy in the UK). She serves on the peer review panel for the UK's AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) and is a registered expert for the EU's Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).

Franziska was awarded her PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2006, and has since written for many international journals, including Leonardo, Organised Sound, Performance Research, Cambridge Publishing and Routledge. She has published a book on performance and the threshold, an edited volume on user-generated content and in 2014 a book on improvisation entitled "Soundweaving".

Franziska has performed with many international musicians including Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, Stelarc, the Avatar Orchestra, and Evan Parker. Franziska has released two CDs on the creative source label, a CD with Slam records, and a 2015 album (entitled 'Barely Cool" with improvisors from Brazil) on the pfmentum label.

Franziska is on the steering committee for the DRHA (Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts) conference, for which she was the Program Chair in 2010. She was the Artistic Director of the 2012 and the 2016 Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, and is the initiator for the annual symposium series that runs alongside the Sonorities Festival.

Franziska was an AHRC Research Fellow between 2007-2009, where she investigated network performance environments. In 2013 Franziska was awarded 1 of 5 prestigious HEA Prof Sir Ron Cooke International Fellowships to carry out ethnographic work on improvisation in Brazil. In 2016 A Santander Mobility Scholarship extended her ethnographic enquiry into free improvisation practices into Portugal.

She leads the "Performance without Barriers" Research group, and is the PI on the 3 year AHRC funded "Bridging the Gap" project, which looks at how accessible music production studios are for the visually impaired.

Franziska' research interests include the intersection of critical theory and digital performance, the role of the body in the age of technological change, as well as free improvisation practices.

BMus and BA Performance Module Convenor for Performance Modules.
School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast. All academic and administrative tasks.


Head of the Music Performance Programme, guiding over 145 performance students and liaising with around 40 tutors instrumental specialists and several community organisations.

Languages: German (native), Portuguese (fluent), French (Baccalaureat, 1992)

Kodály musicianship training: 1995 - 1998 and 2008 Intensive summer course

Advanced Video and Audio Editing Skills

Music, Yoga, Bike and Food