Amanda Babington

Photo of Amanda Babington

Lecturer in Music

BMus (Hons), MA (Performance), MA (Musicology), PhD, FHEA

Email: [email protected]

 

  • PhD Supervisor
  • Module coordinator for PG module Repertoire Project
  • Tutor for PG module Lecture Recital
  • PG Mentor
  • Elective tutor
  • Theory Tutor
  • Lecturer on MCP1 Module
  • JRNCM tutor in Advanced Theory, Musicianship II and Sight-Singing

 

Amanda Babington’s publications include a major article on the letters between Charles Jennens (librettist of Messiah) and his Jacobite friend Edward Holdsworth. Her edition of Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem was published by the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe in 2015. And her PhD thesis (University of Manchester, 2010) was titled ‘Handel’s Messiah: the Creative Process’.

More recently, her research has turned towards French Baroque music and she is currently working on a research project exploring the repertoire potentially played by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) on his Musette. Her debut solo Musette disc will be released in 2022 on the Deux-Elles label

Amanda regularly shares her research at conferences in the UK and Europe, and has given talks for a number of organisations and events, including Göttingen International Handel Festival, The Foundling Museum, London, and Manchester Camerata.

In addition to her musicological work, Amanda is a Baroque violinist, Recorder and Musette player. Specialising in 17th– and 18th-century repertoire, “Amanda soared magnificently whether on violin…on recorder…or on musette.” “Amanda’s performance was absolutely stunning and the audience responded with a much extended ovation.”

Artistic Director of Baroque In The North, Amanda is also a member of chamber ensembles AB24, Four’s Company and Aberdeen Early Music Collective. She has given masterclasses at various universities and conservatoires across the UK and Europe, from The University of Aberdeen to the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Riga.

A Visiting Performance Fellow at Aberdeen University, she has been Director of the University of Manchester Baroque Orchestra since 2006.

As a violinist and recorder player she records and performs regularly in the UK and Europe with many of the leading British and European period-instrument ensembles, including Les Talens Lyrique, Dunedin Consort, Ex Cathedra, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Academy of Ancient Music, Florilegium, and Fiori Musicali.

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).

Described as a ‘canary on amphetamines’ (for her performance of Vivaldi’s concerto for sopranino recorder), Amanda completed a Master’s degree in performance in 2018 at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, where she specialised on musette – 18thcentury French bagpipes. This makes her one of only a handful of musette players in the world. Her debut solo Musette album will be recorded in 2021 and released on the Deux-Elles label.

Personal website:

https://amandababington.com

https://baroqueinthenorth.com

https://musettesociety.com

 

 

Personal Website

Current and Future Research

Research Interests:

  • Handel
  • Messiah
  • Editing
  • Performance Practice
  • Musical culture in the North East of Scotland in the 18th century
  • French Baroque music
  • Music at the Stuart court in Rome

Publications:

  • G. F Handel Te Deum for the Victory at the Battle of Dettingen, HWV 283, and Anthem for the Victory of Dettingen, HWV 265, edited for the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe. Published Bärenreiter, 2016.
  • ‘Musical References in the Jennens-Holdsworth Correspondence (1729-46)’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 45/1 (2014), 76-129.
  • ‘Handel the Tutor’, Brio, 51/1 (2014), 16-22.
  •  ‘Handel’s Messiah: the Creative Process’. Re-written PhD thesis currently under consideration by Boydell and Brewer.
  •  ‘Saul in Buxton’, Early Music Review, 143 (2011), 18-19. Review.
  • ‘Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749): Two Serenatas’, Eighteenth-Century Music, 8/2 (2011). (recording review)
  • ‘European Renaissance Music’, Early Music, 39/2 (2011). 7 (recording review)
  • ‘Early British Song’, Early Music, 38/4 (2010), 611-614 (recording review).
  • ‘Handel’s solo sonatas’, Early Music Performer, Issue II (March 2003), 15-23.

Research Funding

 

  • The National Lottery Community Fund, 2020
  • RMA Small Research Grant, 2013
  • Music & Letters Award, 2011

Undergraduate Teaching

  • Theory and Musicianship
  • Music, Culture and Performance
  • Performance Studies
  • Research Electives
  • Theory and musicianship (JRNCM)

Postgraduate Teaching

  • PG Repertoire Project (Module coordinator)
  • PG Freelance Musician (Module coordinator)
  • PG 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

Journal Articles

    • Babington Amanda and Chrissochoidis Ilias, ‘Musical References in the Jennens-Holdsworth Correspondence (1729-46)’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 45 (2014), 76-129.
    • Amanda Babington, ‘Handel the Tutor’, Brio, 51 (2014), 16-22.

Scholarly Editions

    • G. F. Handel, Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem, Amanda Babington, 2016, Bärenreiter (Hallische-Händel Ausgabe), Kassel, Basle, London, New York, Prague

Conference Contributions

    • 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

Performances

    • Corelli, Veracini, Handel Aberdeen Art Gallery Lunchbreak Concerts, Amanda Babington Violin, Cello, Harpsichord, Salvation Army Citadel, Aberdeen, 29 September 2018
    • Various Four’s Company, Four’s Company, Two violins, Gamba, Harpsichord, St Paul’s Hall, University of Huddersfield
    • J. S. Bach B Minor Mass, Northern Baroque, Strings, Wind, Trumpet, Timpani, Organ, Choir, Soloists, The Monastery, Gorton
    • Music For Kings – solo Musette music, Baroque In The North in partnership with AB24 Aberdeen Baroque, Charlesworth, Derbyshire
    • Music For Kings – solo Musette music, Baroque In The North in partnership with AB24 Aberdeen Baroque, L’Alliance Française, Manchester

Recordings

    • 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
    • G. Finger Music by Gottfried Finger, The Society of Tickle Fiddle Gentlemen, Violin, Recorder, Ramée/Out There, Canterbury, July 2018
    • 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

Talks, Workshops and Masterclasses

  • Masterclass in Baroque Violin and Recorder ,  Masterclass, Riga,  5-7 November
  • The Question of Influence in the Dissemination and Reception of Works by Foreign Composers Published in England in the Early Eighteenth Century ,  Themed Session: ‘Continental Music for the British Public: Exchange and Interaction in Early 18th Century London’, Birmingham City University,  August

Professional Activity

Fellow of Advance HE (formerly Higher Education Academy)

Artistic Director, Baroque In The North

Visiting Performance Fellow, Univerity of Aberdeen

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