News

Mainstream classical concert culture today ‘disembodies’ music and distances performers from their audience, argues Professor Bettina Varwig. Drawing on very different ideas about music and the body from the early modern period, she aims to transform the experience for all involved by restoring classical music's powerful relationship with our bodie…

We are delighted to announce that the Faculty of Music has been rated the top music department in the UK by the Complete University Guide 2027. Congratulations to all — students, staff and academics — for working to ensure continued success and attainment.Music's top rank joins a strong showing from across Humanities subjects in Cambridge. 

The Faculty of English and Faculty of Music are seeking a creative, proactive and strategically minded part-time Communications Coordinator.They will champion the stories, achievements and activities of both Faculties, including world leading research, degree programmes, public events, student life and alumni successes.The Communications Coordinato…

The Faculty of Music is delighted to hear that alumnus Professor David R. M. Irving has been named as the 2026 recipient of the Royal Musical Association’s Dent Medal. The RMA has awarded this honour annually since 1961 to a scholar making an ‘outstanding contribution to musicology’. Professor Irving, whose research has focused on questions of musi…

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Kyra Humphreys as the new Co-Director of Performance at the Faculty of Music. Kyra is a distinguished orchestral and chamber musician whose career spans many of the UK’s leading symphony and chamber orchestras. She has appeared as soloist at the Proms, performs regularly with her Zanfonia trio, and se…

Current PhD candidate Edward Campbell-Rowntree (Girton) has been awarded the Irene Alm Memorial Prize by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (SSCM) for his lecture-recital “Affective Affordance: Emotive Potentialities in Johann Jakob Froberger’s Death Meditations”, which was presented at the society’s annual conference at the University of No…

In the 2026 QS subject rankings, the Faculty of Music at Cambridge has been ranked the best university department in the UK for the study of music. Congratulations to our academic colleagues, our students and our professional staff for working in concert so tirelessly. Music conservatories are included in the same ranking category, but offer differ…

The Faculty of Music has taken part in this collaborative project with the Maxwell Centre, the Henry Royce Institute, and the Cambridge School for Visual and Performing Arts Graduate School. The project investigates the question: how can the arts engage with material sciences research?Three students from the Faculty will perform their pieces inspir…

We are delighted to welcome Professor Osborne as the inaugural Carmack Composer in Residence at the Faculty of Music, where he will be working with student composers and performers. There will be premiere performances of a number of works, commissioned by Elizabeth Carmack, and there will be a seminar at the Faculty on the 10th of March before a pe…

The third edition of the Faculty of Music’s electro//acoustic day will take place from 9.30am-8.30pm on Thursday 19 March, as part of the Sounds New Festival, a festival celebrating new music across the University of Cambridge (6-22 March).Marta Gentilucci, Artistic Director of the electro//acoustic day, introduces the event:'As electro//acoustic d…

This year's Cambridge Festival programme has just launched, featuring several exciting events led by members of the Faculty of Music:12 March: Riffs and Rights: New music and dance for human rights This event, held in association with the first Carmack Composer Residency, held in 2026 by Nigel Osborne, presents a fascinating and innovative collabor…

Congratulations to Professor Richard Causton, whose piano trio If I Could Tell You, premiered in January 2025 by the Fidelio Trio, has been shortlisted for the 2026 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards in the Chamber-Scale Composition category (supported by Boosey & Hawkes). Congratulations also to two Music Faculty alumni, trumpeter Matilda Lloyd and…

This Christmas, Professor Catherine Bradley, Associate Professor in Early Music, helped to rescue a carol that had lain silent for ‘hundreds of years’ in the archive of St. John’s College. Only the text survived, and the music was set to music by Master of the King’s Music, and Cambridge alumna, Errollyn Wallen CBE.The story is explained by the BBC…

We are delighted to announce that Benedict Taylor will take up an Associate Professorship in Theory & Analysis in September 2026. Benedict's research encompasses the analysis and philosophy of music from the 18th to the mid-20th centuries; his background specialisation in German and British music is counterbalanced by research interests in a wide r…

We are delighted to announce that Phillip Matty (MPhil, 2024-25) has been awarded the Arthur Bliss Prize for Composition for 2025. The award is made for the best portfolio of compositions submitted in either the MPhil or Part II of the Music Tripos.Phillip is now pursuing a career as a freelance composer and is currently participating in the 32nd e…