Music

Introduction

Research in Music at Huddersfield has recognised strengths in contemporary music performance and composition, sonic arts and technology, early music, performance studies and music analysis.

In the 2008 RAE, 95% of the department’s submission was recognised as of international standing and 20% classified as ‘world leading’, with Huddersfield judged the best department in a new university for music research.

Important areas of our research are given strategic focus by the activities of the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) led by Prof Liza Lim and the Centre for the Study of Music, Gender and Identity (MuGI) led by Dr Lisa Colton.  Additional projects that have attracted large research grants from the AHRC, British Academy, EPSRC include ‘Making the Tudor Viol’, led by Prof John Bryan, ‘Music of Christian Wolff’ led by Dr Philip Thomas and ‘Interactive Aural Analysis’ led by Prof Michael Clarke, ‘Sounds of Stonehenge’, led by Dr Rupert Till, ‘Outside the Box’ led by Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, resulting in key publications in their respective fields.

The University of Huddersfield’s particular research strength in contemporary music is underpinned by CeReNeM’s 13 full-time staff, 4 research fellows, a postgraduate community of approximately 50 students and high-level facilities for electroacoustic and computer music including the SRIF-funded SPIRAL:  a 24-channel studio for research into interactive multi-channel sound diffusion. An active programme of research fora, concerts, workshops and ensembles-in-residence such as ELISION and Exaudi ensure a vibrant exchange of ideas in an interdisciplinary environment.

The University is home to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, a major event on the international calendar. Its Artistic Director Graham McKenzie, is an associate member of CeReNeM.  International visitors also descend on the department during the Electric Spring Festival taking place annually in February.  The department successfully hosted the large scale 37^th International Computer Music Conference in 2011.

Although contemporary music remains the primary research focus, other important research areas within Music are:

• Musicology – Dr Steven Jan has written the first book applying the memetic theory of Richard Dawkins to musicological analysis: The Memetics of Music: A Neo-Darwinian View of Musical Structure and Culture (2007). Emeritus Prof. Richard Steinitz has written György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination (2003) – one of the first significant books in English about the composer. Dr Philip Thomas has published The Music of Christian Wolff (Ashgate) and Dr Rupert Till, Ritual in Popular Music (Continuum). Dr Lisa Colton is currently working on Music and Identity in Late Medieval England and Prof John Bryan, Making the Tudor Viol.
• Performance – The department has a strong international reputation for practice-based research. Between them Prof. John Bryan, Prof. Barrie Webb and Dr. Philip Thomas have released over 50 CDs documenting their on-going research into early music and contemporary music respectively. There are a growing number of performance-practice PhD students and the department welcomes students from the EU and North America as well as the UK.

Our research objectives are focused around fostering internationally excellent and world leading work and we aim:

• to continue to encourage and provide resources for staff to produce work of international excellence
• to encourage more cross-disciplinary research under the auspices of CeReNeM in order to expand the audiences for and impact of our work
• to create national and international opportunities for research connected to two important archives held at the university: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and British Music Information Centre
• to increase funding to Music for research projects from both the University and external funding agencies
• to create two further research centres: CePS (Centre for Performance Studies) and CeCAA (Centre for Computer Assisted Analysis)