Biography

Dr Eugene Seow is a Singapore-based higher arts education lecturer, practice-led researcher, dissertation/project supervisor, and drum kit/percussion/rhythm-section educator. His work examines how contemporary musicians develop aural fluency, ensemble coordination, structural listening, musical judgement, and practice-led artistic knowledge across higher education, adult learning, and professional music contexts.

His research and teaching centre on aural fluency, ensemble pedagogy, rhythm pedagogy, curriculum design, and assessment in higher music education. Across these areas, he is particularly interested in how musicians develop structural listening, groove fluency, role awareness, evaluative judgement, and the ability to translate embodied musical knowledge into teachable, assessable, and researchable forms.

Dr Seow’s current research programme examines musical motion, embodied practice, ensemble cognition, and evaluative judgement across performance, pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. This work connects rhythm pedagogy, aural fluency, practice-led research, and contemporary musicianship through a sustained concern with how musical knowledge is heard, enacted, taught, and assessed.

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He lectures in Contemporary Music at LASALLE College of the Arts and in Arts Management at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), University of the Arts Singapore. At LASALLE, his work includes contemporary music teaching, main study and ensemble contexts, and dissertation advising across music and arts education. At NAFA, he contributes to Arts Ecosystem 1 and Academic and Digital Skills, with emphasis on music-context understanding, academic writing, digital literacy, professional practice, arts-sector awareness, project articulation, reflective evidence, and student development.

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He also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate research at Singapore Raffles Music College, and serves as a Guest Lecturer at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore. His wider university arts work includes ensemble, musicianship, and guest-teaching contexts with NUS and NTU student music communities. Within the University of the Arts Singapore’s IN-depth programme, he facilitates interdisciplinary creative research involving students from LASALLE and NAFA.

For dissertation, project, practice-led research, and research-methods support, see my Supervision page.

Dr Seow’s editorial, advisory, and examining work reflects his interest in standards, assessment, and practice-led higher music education. He serves as Associate Editor for the Higher Education section of Frontiers in Education and as an Advisory Board Member for Media Discourse and Society at the Virtual University of Pakistan. He also holds research and professorial appointments with Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Christian University and European-American University. His examining and assessment-related work spans diploma, degree, portfolio, and doctoral contexts, with particular attention to practice-based outputs, portfolio evidence, contemporary musicianship, and evaluative judgement.

Dr Seow holds doctoral degrees in Music Education and Contemporary Performance, and is completing a PhD in Music with a focus on Curriculum Innovation and Pedagogic Design. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), with additional advanced fellowships and qualifications across performance, musicology, composition, and applied musicianship.

His recent and forthcoming research appears in Music Education Research, Jazz Education in Research and Practice, International Journal of Arts Education, College Music Symposium, and edited volumes with Vernon Press, UNISA Press, and IGI Global. His work spans three closely connected strands:

Aural fluency, rhythm pedagogy, and decolonising listening practice

Ensemble pedagogy, groove fluency, and role-based rhythm-section learning

Assessment, evaluative judgement, and embodied learning in higher music education

As a rhythm-section multi-instrumentalist, Seow draws on practice across drum kit, percussion, electric bass, contemporary piano, composition, arranging, and ensemble direction. This artist-practitioner background informs his teaching of groove, time-feel, ensemble role, sound, touch, structural listening, and contemporary musicianship.

His performance and creative work have included major professional contexts such as the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra × Julian Chan Jazz Orchestra, Esplanade, Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS, Lincoln Center, and festival appearances across Asia, Europe, and the United States. These experiences inform his research into ensemble pedagogy, aural fluency, intercultural musicianship, and contemporary music learning.

He is also active as a drum kit and percussion educator-performer, and is a Rohema Ambassador and Pantheon Artist/endorser. These artist partnerships support his work across drum kit, percussion, rhythm-section practice, brush work, low-volume ensemble settings, and higher music education.

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Across his teaching, supervision, research, and professional practice, Dr Seow’s work bridges artistic practice, higher music pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum innovation. His central concern is helping musicians produce work that is musically alive, contextually grounded, and defensible within contemporary higher music education.