Postgraduate research students

This thesis explores the impact of war on social and recreational music making undertaken by civilians. Taking the activity of the Glasgow Orpheus Choir between the years 1914-20 as a localised case study, it evaluates war and conflict as drivers of amateur and social music making, and the extent to which these factors affected programming, rehearsal praxis, and the performance practice of amateur music groups.

The period 1914-20 includes several discrete episodes of conflict that varied in size and locality: the First World War most notably, but also the Easter Rising (an initially unsuccessful act of civil disobedience that ultimately set in motion the circumstances that led to creation of the Irish Free State), the Russian Revolution and subsequent years of civil war, and local popular unrest in Glasgow and Dundee (stimulated by sizeable rent increases in 1916, and a strike organised by the Clyde Workers’ Committee in 1919). This thesis therefore considers musical responses to various types of conflict by an amateur, albeit popular choir.

Significant investigation has been undertaken in recent years into various relationships between war and music, notably the impact of conflict on the role of professional, unionised musicians, the relationship between music and governmental objectives (notably recruitment and conscription), and the use of music by the armed forces in the theatre of conflict. However the impact of war on amateur musicians is currently under-researched, therefore this study aims to extend our understanding of war as a cultural influence on this group.

Research interests

music and conflict, music and politics, early twentieth century history, Scottish choral culture, reception history, social history, nationalism and transnationalism, amateurism in music.

'Crisp as a cream-cracker': Nikolai Orloff and British Musical Journalism (In memory of Stuart Campbell). Muzikologija : časopis Muzikološkog instituta Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, 2021, Volume 2, Issue 31

• Professor Eva Moreda Rodriguez
• Dr John Williamson

Award from the Royal Musical Association to produce Study Day 'Choral Singing and the Transnational', April 2025.

Travel bursary from the Univerity of Glasgow to attend RMA Student Conference in Cardiff, January 2024.

Choral Singing and the Transnational. RMA Study Day 11 April 2025, co-produced with Kenneth Tay (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and Kotryna Starkute (KMH Stockholm alum.) Included paper '(Dis)embodied Transnationalism': a lyric in the Euing Collection.

Scottish Musical Cultures: Music Journals in the Celtic Revival. Paper given at the Musica Scotica Study Day, February 2024.

Scottish Choral Culture during the First World War: A Case Study. Paper given at the Royal Musical Association Student Conference, January 2024.

Scottish Choral Culture in the Early Twentieth Century: Music, Community, Geopolitics. Presentation given at the University of Glasgow Postgraduate Music Students' Conference, June 2023.

PhD (Tutor) 2023/24, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Music