Research Staff
Music Psychology
Professor Jane Ginsborg, Associate Director of Research
Professor Jane Ginsborg read music at the University of York, and trained as a singer at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has published widely on expert musicians’ approaches to practising and memorizing, and won the British Voice Association’s Van Lawrence Award in 2002 for her research on singers’ memorizing strategies. She served as President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) between 2012 and 2015 and has been Editor-in-Chief of Musicae Scientiae since 2019.
Composition
Professor Adam Gorb , Head of Composition
Professor Adam Gorb studied music at Cambridge University and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he graduated with the highest honours including the Principal’s Prize. His compositions include orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo and choral works, and have been performed, broadcast and recorded world-wide. His works have been featured in new music feativals festivals in Huddersfield, Cheltenham, Spitalfields and Canterbury, and he has been a featured composer at Luton and Bromsgrove music clubs. He has had concerts devoted to his music in the UK, the USA and Canada.
All Research Staff
Composition
Dr Laura Bowler – Composition, Experimental Music Theatre, Contemporary Opera, Multimedia Composition, Theatre Direction, Physicality in Performance, Grotowski Theatre Practice, Extended Vocal Technique.
Visiting Professor Gary Carpenter – Composition and arranging.
Dr Rodrigo Constanzo – Composition, improvisation and popular music.
Dr Steven Daverson – Composition.
Professor Adam Gorb – Composition and arranging.
Dr Larry Goves – Composition and electroacoustic music.
Professor David Horne – Composition; arranging; improvisation; orchestration; electroacoustic music with live instruments; twentieth-century analysis; contemporary British music; opera since 1900; contemporary performance practice; Wagner; Puccini.
Professor Emily Howard – Composition; Research projects in conjunction with PRiSM, the RNCM’s Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music.
Paul Patterson – Composition and arranging.
Dr Sam Salem – PRiSM Lecturer in Composition. Creates audiovisual works for performers, electronics and video, which challenge traditional notions of concert presentation and instrumental
virtuosity.
Dr Thomas Scott – Electroacoustic composition.
Dr Stuart McCallum – Guitarist, composer, producer; jazz, folk, ambient, electronica; immersive audio – Dolby Atmos.
Dr Adam Swayne – Pianist and composer; Ferdinand Ries; the concerto from the late 18th century; contemporary music; chamber music and ensemble performance.
Dr Nina Whiteman – Composition.
Music education and pedagogy
Dr John Habron – Qualitative, theoretical and historical research in music education and music therapy; Dalcroze Eurhythmics; music and healthcare; music and SEND (special educational needs and disability).
Dr Jennie Henley – Music pedagogy and educational practice: the relationship between pedagogy and inclusion, music curricula design and development, music education policy, instrumental teaching, ensembles in education, music in prisons, action research in music teaching, adult learning and community music.
Robert Gardiner – Music education and pedagogy.
Music psychology
Dr Sara Ascenso – Music psychology, musicians’ health and well-being, positive psychology.
Professor Jane Ginsborg– Music psychology: preparation for expert performance, particularly singing; memory for music; musicians’ health and well-being.
Dr Michelle Phillips – Research interests include music perception, audience response to live and live-streamed music, perception of contemporary music, music and time, music and maths, music and the golden section, and music and Parkinson’s.
Musicology
Dr Amanda Babington – Handel; French Baroque; Editing; Music history and performance practice, especially pertaining to Violin, Recorder and Musette.
Dr Simon Clarke – Continental philosophy in general, deconstruction and critical theory in particular, the long 19th century, Ravel, orchestration, metal.
Dr Nico de Villiers – Collaborative Pianist and Vocal Coach; editing; the collaborative pianist as a researcher; particular research focuses include American art song of the first half of the 20th Century; art song as a migrating genre; biography as research; performance as research.
Professor Cheryll Duncan – Professional music culture in Britain during the 17th and 18th centuries; singers, instrumentalists, composers and impresarios; music publishing; iconography; theatre history; archival studies, particularly legal documents.
Dr David Fligg – The effects that the Holocaust had on music and musicians, in particular music making in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) prison camp and ghetto; the life and music of Gideon Klein. David Fligg was Project Consultant for the Leeds University-based AHRC-funded ‘Performing the Jewish Archive’ initiative, 2014-2018.
Dr Annika Forkert – History, analysis, and aesthetics of early and mid-20th century music in Britain; musical modernism; microtonal, atonal and serial music; female composers (focus on Elisabeth Lutyens and Rebecca Clarke) and feminist musicology; film music in Britain up to 1970.
Professor David Horne – Composition; arranging; improvisation; orchestration; electroacoustic music with live instruments; twentieth-century analysis; contemporary British music; opera since 1900; contemporary performance practice; Wagner; Puccini.
Dr David Jones – French music 1800 to the present, especially mélodie; art song from the 19th centuries to the present; 20th century British composers.
Dr Pauline Nobes – 17th and 18th century violin music; Baroque performance practice, especially strings.
Dr Michelle Phillips – Research interests include perception of large-scale musical form, audience response to live music, perception of contemporary music, music and time, music analysis, and music and the golden section.
Professor Nicholas Reyland – Polish music (principally the music of Witold Lutosławski), narrative, film and television scoring, popular music, affect and embodiment, trauma studies, and the theory, analysis and criticism of music since 1900.
Dr Adam Swayne – Pianist and composer; Ferdinand Ries; the concerto from the late 18th century; contemporary music; chamber music and ensemble performance.
Dr Geoff Thomason – Adolph Brodsky – Music in Manchester c.1890-1930 – Music in the First World War – British concert life and repertoire reception / development.
Dr David Vickers – Handel and his contemporaries; Historical Performance and the Classical Recording Industry; Editing operas and oratorios; Baroque Music from Monteverdi to Telemann; 17th-century and 18th-century vocal music for the chapel and theatre (Purcell, Vivaldi, Bach, Rameau, Mozart and Haydn).
Performance
Dr Amanda Babington – Handel; French Baroque; Editing; Music history and performance practice, especially pertaining to Violin, Recorder and Musette.
Harvey Davies – Pianist and harpsichordist; 18th century historically informed performance; 20th century British music; archives and performance.
Prof David Horne – Composition; arranging; improvisation; orchestration; electroacoustic music with live instruments; twentieth-century analysis; contemporary British music; opera since 1900; contemporary performance practice; Wagner; Puccini.
Dr David Jones – Pianist, répétiteur and accompanist; the art of the collaborative pianist especially with reference to mélodie and other art song; French music 1800 to the present; 20th century British composers.
Professor John Miller – Brass performance; history of brass bands and brass-band repertoire.
Dr Pauline Nobes – 17th and 18th century violin music; Baroque performance practice, especially strings.
Dr Stuart McCallum – Guitarist, composer, producer; jazz, folk, ambient, electronica.
Dr Adam Swayne – Pianist and composer; Ferdinand Ries; the concerto from the late 18th century; contemporary music; chamber music and ensemble performance.
Dr David Thornton – Brass band performance and repertoire; innovations in contemporary brass literature.
In addition, please consult the extensive lists of performance staff by following the links to the appropriate Schools of Conducting, Keyboard Studies, Popular Music, Strings, Vocal Studies and Wind, Brass and Percussion.
PRiSM, The RNCM Centre for Practice & Research in Science & Music
Professor Emily Howard (RNCM) – PRiSM Director
Professor Marcus du Sautoy (University of Oxford) – PRiSM Co-Director
Professor David De Roure (Oxford e-Research Centre) – PRiSM Technical Director
Dr Sam Salem (RNCM) – PRiSM Lecturer in Composition
Dr Christopher Melen (RNCM) – PRiSM Research Software Engineer
Dr Sam Duffy – PRiSM Business Associate
