About Simon
- MPerf Course Leader
- PGDip:AS Course Leader
- Director of CPRC (Contemporary Philosophy Research Centre)
- Theory and Musicianship Module Coordinator
- PhD supervisor
- Postgraduate tutor
- Undergraduate tutor
Dr Simon Clarke is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Music and Deputy Head of Graduate School at the Royal Northern College of Music. Beginning with his 2010 article ‘Line and Colour: Instrumental (Ir-)Rationality in Adorno’s Musicology’, his focus has been the aesthetic foundations of traditional ontology, very much in the Derridean line, though this has more recently developed into a self-styled 3D philosophy (Deconstruction, Dialectics and Dialetheism). In this vein, ‘Debussy’s Speculative Idea: Orchestration and the Substance of Jeux‘, reading Debussy through Hegel’s Science of Logic, was published by the Journal of the Royal Musical Association in 2018. More recently, both ‘Aporetology or Aporetography in Derrida and Badiou’ and (2020) and ‘Nothing Else Matters: Dialetheism and the Event of Sovereignty’ (2022) have appeared in the French journal MaLiCE.
Research
Current and Future Research
David Horne and I are in the final editing stages of our monograph Music in Contradiction: A Study of Logic and Musical Meaning – here, the idea is to interpret music in accordance primarily with Graham Priest’s Logic of Paradox (LP), along with the work of his fellow ‘paraconsistent frontierspeople’ Hegel, Heidegger, Adorno, Althusser, Derrida and Butler (update 2026: now contracted with Routledge, the full manuscript submission being due on 01.05.26).
External Research Roles
- Artistic Director and Guitarist, Vulgar Display (2011 – present)
Teaching
Undergraduate Teaching
- Theory and Musicianship 1 and 2
- Introduction to Philosophy (elective)
- Aesthetics (elective) The Beatles (elective)
- Ravel and the Art of Orchestration (elective)
- Strauss’s Tone Poems (elective)
- Strauss’s Operas (elective)
- Debussy (elective)
- Rachmaninioff’s Orchestral Music (elective)
- Metal (elective)
- Language of Music 3 (elective)
Postgraduate Teaching
- Research Methods: Musicology
- Major and minor dissertation supervision
Research Supervision
Current supervision of PhDs:
- Devon Bonelli
- James Waide
- Frankie Stevens
- Piers Hudson
Research Outputs
Written Outputs
Music in Contradiction: A Study of Logic and Musical Meaning
Clarke, S. & Horne, D., 2027, (In preparation) Abingdon: Routledge. (Routledge Research in Music)‘Nothing Else Matters: Dialetheism and the Event of Sovereignty’
Clarke, S., 2022, In: MaLiCE, Le magazine des littératures et des cultures. 13‘Logics of Inexistence: ‘Aporetology or Aporetography’ in Derrida and Badiou’
Clarke, S., 2020, In: MaLiCE, Le magazine des littératures et des cultures. 10‘Debussy’s Speculative Idea: Orchestration and the Substance of Jeux’
Clarke, S., 2018, In: Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 143, 1Line and Colour: Instrumental (Ir-)rationality in Adorno’s Musicology
Clarke, S., 2010, In: Contemporary Music Review. 29, 4, p. 359-365 7 p.Practice Research/Compositions
Violin Concerto (Maurice Ravel, arr. Simon Clarke)
Clarke, S. (Composer), 2009Professional Activity
Public Presentations and Performance
Derrida, Undecidability and the Paradoxical Unity of the Object
Clarke, S. (Speaker / presenter)
‘Strange alogical logic’ and The Immanence of Truths: Dialectics, Deconstruction, Dialetheism
Clarke, S. (Speaker / presenter)
Music in Contradiction
Clarke, S. (Speaker / presenter) & Horne, D. (Speaker / presenter)
PhD Supervision and Examination
Supervised Devon Bonelli, ‘Fag on the Dance Floor: De/Reterritorializing through Composing Queer, Theatrical, and Narrative Music’ [composition, completed March 2025]
Horne, D. (Examiner), Clarke, S. (Examiner) & Salem, S. (Examiner)
Supervised Matthew King, ‘Sonata, what do you mean to me? Creative dialogues with a form’ [composition, completed June 2024 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama]
Clarke, S. (Examiner)
Internal Examiner for Dr. Davide Sciacca, ‘The Guitar at the Opera: An Investigation into Guitar Repertoire Inspired by the Operas of Vincenzo Bellini’ (performance, September 2023)
Clarke, S. (Examiner)
Internal Examiner for Dr. Nate Chivers, Derivative Composition Practice and Application: Creating a Collection of Works Based on Electric Guitar Solos (composition, September 2023)
Clarke, S. (Examiner)
Supervised Dr. David Bainbridge, ‘Grasping Nothing: A Study of Minimal Ontologies and the Sense of Music’ [musicology, completed April 2023]
Clarke, S. (Examiner)
Supervising James Waide, ‘Composition, Punctuation, Substance; Raising Music in a Lacanian-Hegelian manner’ [composition, ongoing]
Horne, D. (Examiner) & Clarke, S. (Examiner)
Professional Service
British Journal of Aesthetics (Journal)
Clarke, S. (Reviewer)