Colloquium series

Abstract: This talk introduces the short monograph I am working on: Listening to Travel Writing: Sound, Bodies and Samuel Purchas' His Pilgrimes . Its central argument is that the epistemic value of hearing (both real and imagined) was vital to early modern travel literature. It builds on the recent work of musicologists...

Abstract: In this colloquium, I will discuss some of my recent research on early modern modes of music making. In particular, I will propose the idea of plenisentience as a basis for understanding these past musical experiences. Plenisentience posits a model of being-in-the-world in which human sense-making takes place in...

Arthur Honegger’s Mouvement Symphonique nr. 3, the third in a trio of symphonic movements that began with Pacific 231 and Rugby —and the only one without a juicy programmatic title—was a commission for the Berlin Philharmonic’s 50 th anniversary celebrations. It premiered in Berlin in March 1933, just days after the...

How did Hindustani art music respond to the political transition from the Mughal empire to British colonialism? In this lecture, I will introduce my recent book which examines musical society and culture in nineteenth-century India. The book charts the movements of musicians and dancers, and the transregional circulation...

Analysis of writing by eugenicists in Britain and the USA from 1869 to 1945 reveals an unlikely preoccupation with musical ability. Following discipline founder Francis Galton, eugenicists believed musical talent to be a particularly obvious example of an inherited gift, and, therefore, proof that other qualities, such as...

This paper analyses some of the social and emotional impacts of community singing and active participation in a choir of people with disabilities in Brisbane, Australia. The article begins by outlining the approach to the history of the group before moving on to consider the effects of singing together. It frames this...

Over the past few decades, spectrograms have become a powerful tool for representing and analyzing animal vocalizations. In the case of birdsong, spectrograms have joined a number of techniques historically used to represent the sounds of birds, including translation into linguistic syllables and musical notation. As with...

Following the success of its performance and CD of John Eccles’ Semele , Cambridge Handel Opera Company continues its alternation of Handel opera production with English music drama, composed in the decade before Handel’s arrival in England, that deserves to be better known. Between The Way of the World and his libretto...

The music of Fanny Hensel is currently enjoying a strong revival, both in terms of public performance and in scholarly inquiry. Alongside this surge of interest has come a growing awareness of the problems, challenges, and obstacles faced not only by Hensel but by her music. And these challenges are not just historical (as...

Peter McMurray is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Music. His primary area of research focuses on the auditory cultures of Turkey and its diasporas, as well as the Ottoman Empire, and he is completing a book/video project on Islamic sonic arts in postmigrant communities in Berlin. He is also the principal...