The University of Leeds

Graduate Student, Music

Provisional Ph.D. Candidate

Thesis Title: (Working Title:) Amateur Music-making in Provincial Yorkshire, 1660-1720

About

Originally from Teesside, I gained my B.A. (Hons) Music degree from the University of Leeds in 2010 (First Class Honours) and my M.Mus. Musicology degree in 2011 (Pass with Distinction).  As part of my Masters work I produced a critical edition of Jeremiah Clarke's New Year's Day ode 'O Harmony, where's now thy pow'r' (1706) and a dissertation entitled 'The English Orpheus: John Eccles and his opera "Semele"'.  In October 2011 I began my doctoral study at Leeds under the supervision of Dr. Bryan White and Dr. Michael Allis.  My Ph.D. research aims to explore the social and cultural influences on amateur music-making in provincial Yorkshire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  I'm the grateful recipient of the 2011 University of Leeds Stanley Burton Research Scholarship and my research is generously supported by The Ropner Trust. 

I'm a student ambassador for the North East Early Music Forum and am active as a conductor and performer (keyboard, cello and viol).  I'm the co-founder of a student-run viol consort and between 2008 and 2009 conducted the Leeds University Union Music Society Sinfonia.  I regularly provide keyboard continuo for groups based in Yorkshire, including Leeds Baroque Choir & Orchestra (where I serve as Librarian and Assistant Administrator), Leeds Guild of Singers, Leeds Haydn Players and Ad Hoc Baroque, a chamber group I direct from the harpsichord. 

As a composer, I'm greatly influenced by early music and enjoy integrating "old" and "new" styles.  My recent compositions include 'Sinfonia Concertante' (2010) for period and modern instruments and 'Funeral Sentences' (2011) for oboe and double choir.  The latter explored the soundscape of Henry Purcell's sacred choral anthems and was awarded Second Prize in the 2011 Leeds University Liturgical Choir Choral Composition Competition.  My 'my o'erflowing teares', inspired by John Dowland's 'Lachrimae' (1604), was awarded the 2011 National Centre for Early Music Instrumental Composers' Award (19-25 age category) and was premiered and broadcast by internationally-acclaimed viol consort Fretwork on BBC Radio 3.  I'm currently composing a piece for solo harpsichord and a mad song for soprano soloist and baroque orchestra inspired by those heard on the late seventeenth-century English stage.

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