Amanda Babington
Lecturer in Music
FHEA, PhD, MA (Performance), MA (Musicology), BMus (Hons)
Email: [email protected]
- PhD Supervisor
- Module coordinator for PG modules Repertoire Project and The Freelance Musician
- Tutor for PG module Research Lecture Recital
- PG Mentor
- Elective tutor
- Theory tutor
- Artist Development tutor
- Performance Studies tutor
- Lecturer on MCP1 Module
- Personal Tutor for UG
- Staff Representative for Staff Engagement Working Group
Amanda Babington is a Lecturer at the Royal Northern College of Music and Executive Officer for the Royal Musical Association. She has published several articles on Handel, and her edition for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe of Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem was published by Bärenreiter in 2016. She is regularly invited to give talks at Göttingen International Handel-Festival, and her book Handels Messiah: the Creative Process will be published later this year.
Amanda is also a musette player, baroque violinist and recorder player, specialising in historically informed performance. Artistic Director of Baroque In The North, she has played and recorded with many of the leading British and European period-instrument ensembles.
She appears on several recordings with Les Talens Lyrique and Ex Cathedra, as well as a recording of newly-edited and previously–unrecorded music by Giovanni Ruggieri (Aberdeen Early Music Collective, Vox Regis, 2018) and another of music by Gottfried Finger (Harmonious Society of Tickle Fiddle Gentlemen, Ramée, 2019). Her debut musette album, Music for French Kings, was well-received on its release in 2022, and featured on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show.
Amanda is also Director of the University of Manchester Baroque Orchestra and has given masterclasses at various universities and conservatoires in the UK, and at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga.
Personal website:
Current and Future Research
Dr Amanda Babington’s book Handel’s Messiah: the Creative Process will be published later this year. Amanda is currently researching Musette repertoire at the Second Stuart Court in Exile (Rome), some of the findings of which will be presented in her next Musette album, Music for French Kings, vol. II.
Research Areas
- Handel
- Editing
- Performance Practice
- Musical culture in the North East of Scotland in the 18th century
- French Baroque music
Research Funding
- The National Lottery Community Fund
- RMA Small Research Grant
- Music & Letters Award
Undergraduate Teaching
- Theory and Musicianship
- Music, Culture and Performance
- Performance Studies
- Research Electives
- Artist Development
Postgraduate Teaching
- Repertoire Project (Module coordinator)
- Freelance Musician (Module coordinator)
- Research Lecture Recital (Module tutor)
Research Supervision
Peggy Nolan, A practice-based enquiry into the correlation of Luigi Boccherini’s craft both as composer and cellist, towards the comprehension and publication of a performance practice method specific to Boccherini’s chamber music.
Selected Outputs
Written Outputs
Babington, Amanda, Handel’s Messiah: the Creative Process, Jenny Stanford publishing, Singapore. 2024
Babington Amanda and Chrissochoidis Ilias, ‘Musical References in the Jennens-Holdsworth Correspondence (1729-46)’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 45 (2015), 76-129.
Amanda Babington, ‘Handel the Tutor’, Brio, 51 (2014), 16-22.
G. F. Handel, Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem, Amanda Babington, 2016, Bärenreiter (Hallische-Händel Ausgabe), Kassel, Basle, London, New York, Prague
Public Presentations
Those disruptive pipes, Providence Church, New Mills, 2022
Amazing Musette, Alliance Française, 2021
The ‘other’ Scottish bagpipes: what did Bonnie Prince Charlie play on his Musette? , 19th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Birmingham, 2021
What did Bonnie Prince Charlie play on his Musette? , Royal Musical Association, Manchester, 12/09/19 2019
Qu’est-ce que Bonnie Prince Charlie a joué sur sa Musette? , Colloque International: la Musette, un instrument de cour, un instrument tout court., Rouen, May 2019
The ‘other’ bagpipes: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Musette , Music in 18th Century Britain, Foundling Museum, London, November 2017
Practice Research
Music for Kings – solo Musette music, A Baroque & Beyond project from Baroque In The North in partnership with AB24 Aberdeen Baroque, Amanda Babington Musette, Harpsichord, Cello, Deux-Elles, 2021
G. Finger Music by Gottfried Finger, The Society of Tickle Fiddle Gentlemen, Violin, Recorder, Ramée/Out There, Canterbury, July 2018
Giovanni Maria Ruggieri Cantatas and Trio Sonatas, Aberdeen Early Music Collective, Frauke Jürgensen (soprano), Dina König (alto) Two violins, cello, gamba, bassoon, theorbo, harpsichord, Vox Regis, Aberdeen, 1-3 August 2016
Professional Activity
Fellow of Advance HE (formerly Higher Education Academy)
Artistic Director, Baroque In The North
Director, University of Manchester Baroque Orchestra
Guest leader, Early Music Latvia/Collegium Musicuum Riga
Member of chamber ensembles AB24 Aberdeen Baroque, Aberdeen Early Music Collective, Four’s Company
Member of the Society for Tickle Fiddle Gentlemen, Ex Cathedra, Fiori Musicali
Violinist, Recorder player, Musette player
