About David
Academic Tutor
Dr David Vickers teaches various undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the RNCM. His main research is Baroque Music, and in particular Handel: he editor of New Perspectives on Handel’s Music: Essays in Honour of Donald Burrows (Boydell Press, 2022), co-editor of The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia (2009), and editor of an anthology of Handelian literature (Ashgate’s ‘Baroque Composers’ series, 2011). His doctoral thesis examined the composer’s own different performing versions of Partenope, Arianna in Creta, Esther and Deborah.
An author of essays or books about aspects of Purcell, Vivaldi, Mozart and Haydn, David’s other interests include seventeenth-century vocal music, baroque sacred repertoire, and eighteenth-century opera. He is an essayist for most leading classical record labels (Virgin, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, Chandos, BIS, etc.) and has been a critic for Gramophone since 2003.
A council member of the Handel Institute, David serves as a project consultant for many international baroque musicians, has appeared frequently on BBC Radio 3, and is in demand as a guest lecturer both at home and abroad. He sings in Leeds Baroque (of which he was a founder member) and conducts choirs in the Huddersfield area. He also has an unhealthy interest in Prog Rock and electric guitars.
Research
Current and Future Research
David’s research interests focus principally on the career and music of Handel and his contemporaries in Germany, Italy, France and Britain. Current and future projects relate to reconstructing different compositional and performing versions of baroque operas and oratorio-style works, investigating the careers of early eighteenth-century singers (such as Senesino, John Beard and Giulia Frasi), aspects of historical performance practice, and the history, reception, and future of historically-informed performances on period instruments within the classical recording industry.
Research Areas
- Editing Handel’s opera Partenope for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (Bärenreiter)
- ‘“Despised and rejected”: Handel making a scene’ – an evaluation of finished music rejected (cut or replaced) before performance
- Eighteenth-century sources of embellishment in Handel arias [collating evidence of manuscript and other musical sources from the early eighteenth century of arias that contain embellished voice parts]
- The London repertoire of soprano Giulia Frasi (fl.1742–74), rediscovering music by Gluck, Galuppi, Ciampi, Terradellas, Arne, J.C. Smith, Stanley, Hayes, etc.
- The repertoire of the castrato Senesino in London (fl.1720–36), exploring music by Bononcini, Ariosti, Porpora, Veracini, etc.
- ‘Mozart the interloper’ – a fusion of scholarly research and creative programming reassessing Mozart’s music (such as many of the so-called ‘concert arias’) created for insertion into works by other composers, and his treatment of scores by forbears and contemporaries
Teaching
Undergraduate Teaching
- Historical and Contextual Studies (Renaissance and Baroque strands)
- Music, Culture & Performance (leader of Baroque strand)
- Performance Studies (from Dowland and Bach to Berlioz and Mahler)
- European baroque sacred music, 1600–1750 (workshop-based elective)
- Music Drama from Monteverdi to Mozart (elective)
- Handel’s Transformations (elective)
- J.S. Bach’s church music (elective)
- Music and Beliefs (contributor to team-taught elective)
- Opera in Paris, 1647–1959 (leader of team-taught elective)
Postgraduate Teaching
- Research Lecture Recital (tutor and examiner)
- Research Repertoire Project (seminar leader and research supervisor)
- Dissertation supervision
Research Outputs
Written Outputs
Staging Handel’s Music Dramas
Vickers, D., 2027, (Accepted/In press) Handel in Context. Coffey, H. & Landgraf, A. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University PressMusic for voices in Baroque Rome, Part 1: the early seicento
Vickers, D., 28 Jan 2026, In: Early Music. 5 p.Music in Baroque Rome, Part 2: the late seicento
Vickers, D., 13 Mar 2026, In: Early Music. 5 p.Vivaldi’s Salterio [recording review]
Vickers, D., Mar 2026, In: Eighteenth-Century Music. 23, 1, p. 63–65“Sense and Significancy”: Senesino in London, 1720–1736
Vickers, D., 2024, In: Händel Jahrbuch. 2024, p. 123–146Baroque operas from madness to enlightenment [recordings review]
Vickers, D., Aug 2023, In: Early Music. 51, 3, p. 480–484“Their Sound is gone out to all Lands”: Period-instrument recordings of Messiah, 1980–2020
Vickers, D., 2023, In: Händel Jahrbuch. 2023, p. 275–317Decisiones cambiantes en Haendel: Elecciones compositivas en sus dramas musicales”, in Georg Friedrich Haendel: una praxis en transformación de la ópera seria, ed. Gabriel Menéndez Torrellas and Carmen Cabrera Bonet (CEU Ediciones, Madrid, 2022).
Vickers, D., 2022, Georg Friedrich Haendel: una praxis en transformación de la ópera seria. Menéndez Torrellas, G. & Cabrera Bonet, C. (eds.). Madrid: CEU EdicionesHandel’s Bilingual Versions of Esther and Deborah, 1734–1737
Vickers, D., 2022, New Perspectives on Handel’s Music: Essays in Honour of Donald Burrows. Vickers, D. (ed.). Woodbridge: The Boydell PressNew Perspectives on Handel’s Music: Essays in Honour of Donald Burrows
Vickers, D. (Editor), 2022, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.Professional Activity
Public Presentations and Performance
Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music 2027
Vickers, D. (Member of programme committee)
Eighteenth-Century Music Symposium
Babington, A. (Speaker / presenter), Duncan, C. (Speaker / presenter), Glatthorn, A. (Speaker / presenter) & Vickers, D. (Speaker / presenter)
Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music 2025
Vickers, D. (Member of programme committee)
Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music 2023
Vickers, D. (Member of programme committee)
Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music 2018
Vickers, D. (Member of programme committee)