Roger Illa Prats

Roger Illa Prats is a Catalan performer, musicologist, and doctoral researcher in the ERC Synergy project REM@KE at the Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg. His research sits at the intersection of historical organology, performance practice, historical rhetoric, and cognitive science. Focusing on the combination keyboard instruments and fortepianos of Johann Andreas Stein, including Gothenburg’s historic 1781 Stein claviorgan, he approaches historical keyboard mechanics as a living laboratory. His work investigates how subtle mechanical variations, acoustic affordances, and non-equal temperaments interact with the performer’s embodied cognition, shaping rhetorical delivery and the listener’s affective experience. He holds a Master’s degree in Early Music Interpretation (UAB/ESMUC) and Bachelor’s degrees in both Classical Piano and Historical Keyboards. Before joining REM@KE, he taught at the Conservatori Superior del Liceu, led research initiatives at the Museu de la Música de Barcelona, and released a critically acclaimed recording of Haydn’s Seven Last Words on an original 1805 Érard&Frères square piano.