Research Environment

An introduction to Music and Music Technology Research

The research ethos in Music at Huddersfield is to encourage excellence across the range of academic disciplines. Having recognised strengths in contemporary music, early music, performance studies and analysis, it has been the Department’s aim that new academic appointments contribute significantly to these areas while also offering other related skills. Research in the Department is primarily focused on contemporary music, an area that has been strengthened by establishing CeReNeM (Centre for Research in New Music) in 2006 and the appointment of Prof. Liza Lim in 2008. This strategic development of CeReNeM has been initiated to draw together all research in contemporary music, to foster cross-disciplinary research and thinking in composition, electronic music, contemporary musicology and performance studies. CeReNeM conducts and disseminates research of the highest international standing into composition, performance and new technologies. CeReNeM enables discourse between departmental staff and visiting artists by supporting the creation and presentation work through residencies, publications and workshops, research fora and its concert series. CeReNeM also has a number of research sound studios. The most elaborate of which is the SRIF funded Sonic Cube – a 24-channel studio for research into interactive multi-channel sound diffusion.

The University is home to Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, a major event on the international calendar. Its Artistic Director Graham McKenzie, is an associate member of CeReNeM. Other contemporary music event within the Department include the GEMDays Festival - a series of concerts presenting work particularly related to Music Technology which include work generated within the University alongside that of national and international visitors. The first GEMDays Festival took place in 2006 and was curated by Dr Mathew Adkins and Dr Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. Invited artists, who performed on the 24-channel GEM sound diffusion system, included Robert Normandeau and Jean Piche (Canada), Phill Niblock (USA), Christian Clozier and Françoise Barrière (IMEB studios, France). In 2007 invited artists included Larry Austin (USA) and Christian Eloy (SCRIME Institute, Bordeaux) and in 2008 Gilles Gobeil (Canada). In 2008 Dr Mathew Adkins, Dr Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Dr Philip Thomas were successful in securing funding from the British Academy and AHRC to further their practice-led research. Other substantial funding has also been received from a variety of arts bodies in the form of commissions and grants to staff for their compositional and research activities.

Although contemporary music remains the primary research focus other important research areas within Music are:

Musicology – Dr Steven Jan has written the first book applying the memetic theory of Richard Dawkins to musicological analysis: The Memetics of Music: A Neo-Darwinian View of Musical Structure and Culture (2007). Prof. Richard Steinitz has written György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination (2003) – one of the first significant books in English about the composer. Members of the department currently engaged on book projects include Philip Thomas (The Music of Christian Wolff), Rupert Till (Ritual in Popular Music) and Lisa Colton (Music and Identity in Late Medieval England)
Performance – The department has a strong international reputation for practice-based research. Between them Prof. John Bryan, Prof. Barrie Webb and Dr. Philip Thomas have released over 50 CDs documenting their on-going research into early music and contemporary music respectively. There is also a growing number of performance-practice PhD students including the Canadian clarinettist Heather Roche, German pianist Sebastian Berwick, and saxophonist Iain Harrison.

Future research objectives are:

to continue to encourage and provide resources for staff to produce work of international excellence
to encourage more cross-disciplinary research under the auspices of CeReNeM
to continue to develop the number of postgraduate students through new courses and bursaries
to increase funding to Music for research projects from both the University and external funding agencies
to create two further research centres: CePS (Centre for Performance Studies) and CeCAA (Centre for Computer Assisted Analysis)

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First International Roberto Gerhard Conference

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Roberto Gherhard

2008 RAE Success in Music

The international standing of research in Music at Huddersfield has been recognised by the 2008 RAE. 95% of the submission was recognised as of international standing with 20% classified as ‘world leading’. Once again, Huddersfield came out on top as the best department in a new university for Music research. This result reflects both the excellent quality and originality of research produced by staff and researchers at Huddersfield and the vibrant research culture of the department.

Music Research Projects

Sybil - Synthesis by Interactive Learning

Calma - Computer Assisted Learning for Musical Awareness.

MARS (Music Archival Research Skills) An AHRC project for postgraduate students at the universities of Huddersfield, Leeds, York, Sheffield and Hull.

Popular Music and Religion : A meeting point for research into religion and popular music.

MA Application

PhD Waiver

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Music and Music Technology Research at Huddersfield