Centre for Music and Conflict (CMC)

The CMC explores the various roles that music and the arts play in reflecting, representing, commenting on and commemorating conflict. It also explores music in conflict situations, and in the contexts of conflict resolution, resilience, diplomacy and peace building.

The CMC’s collaborations are interdisciplinary and involve the active participation of writers, cultural and economic historians and literary theorists, ethnomusicologists, music education experts and psychologists.

The Centre’s Research

The CMC is focused primarily on the following themes:

  • Creative practice and conflict
  • Music in war and peace
  • Nationalism and transnationalism
  • Music, politics and international diplomacy
  • Commemoration
  • Trauma and healing

The CMC addresses these themes from a variety of complementary approaches, such as creative practice in composition and performance, cultural and political history, critical theory and analysis.

Maurice Ravel as a soldier.

Anonymous (1916) Maurice Ravel as a Soldier, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Music Department, Est. Ravel M. 012 bis [online]. Document description: positive print, 9×6,5 cm. Catalogue: http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39625215v

Team and Collaborators

RNCM

Professor Barbara L. Kelly

Professor Adam Gorb

Professor Nicholas Reyland

Dr Adam Swayne

Dr Geoff Thomason

Rachel Johnson (Centre Coordinator)

Dr David Fligg (Research Associate)

Ben Kaye (Research Associate)

Rachel Beckles-Willson (Honorary Research Professor)

External partners

Professor James Gow, Professor of International Peace and Security, Kings College, London

Dr Fiorella Montero-Diaz, Lecturer in Ethnomusicology, Keele University

Centre Affiliates

Professor Deborah Mawer, Associate Director of Research, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (Music and Performing Arts), Co-Director, French Music Research Hub

CMC Research Projects