Durham Music Department

Department delighted to host He Jie as visiting researcher

We welcome her from Wuhan Conservatory of Music (China) to conduct research between September 2024 and February 2025.

He Jie (Helen) is a literary scholar and linguist, as well as translator of several academic volumes on music.

She comes to Durham to research incorporation of the work of Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai into Chinese popular song, and the reception of this music among different audiences. She will be working with Dr Samuel Horlor.

Giorgio Scalici, department PhD graduate, publishes first monograph

Pain, Play and Music: Death and Healing Rites Among the Wana was published in May 2024 by Bloomsbury Academic.

The book results from Scalici’s PhD, conducted at Durham under supervision of Simon Mills, Professor of Ethnomusicology, with Professor Douglas Davies.

Based on fieldwork with the Wana people of Morowali, Central Sulawesi (Indonesia), it compellingly shows how music is used by the Wana to heal, control emotions, and reinforce sense of community. ethnomusicology

Durham Musicologists are bringing Parisian Vaudeville and Japanese Songs to Being Human Festival in the North East. Get involved and write your own vaudeville song at Newcastle Arts Centre on 7 November, 7.30pm; discover the touring singer Yoshie Fujiwara, Anglo-Japanese connections, and local art inspired by Fujiwara’s songs by dropping in at Durham Clayport Library on 11 November, 2–6 pm.

Congratulations to second-year BA Music undergraduate student Anthony Sutch for winning the Music Department’s EDI Prize for 2023/24.

Anthony’s winning entry, written for the module World Music Traditions, was an essay entitled “The Vuvuzela as a South African Emblem.”

The prize judging panel complimented the essay’s sophisticated engagement with the vuvuzela (a plastic horn often played at sporting events in South Africa) through postcolonial and q***r theory.

Anthony’s prize comes with a reward of £100!

We’re excited to be organising an event as part of this year’s Being Human Festival (7–16 November). is the UK’s national festival of the humanities. Browse the full programme now: https://beinghumanfestival.org/festival-events
Dr Amanda Hsieh is hosting a drop-in listening booth called ‘Song Travels, with “Our Tenor” Yoshie Fujiwara’ on Monday 11 November at 2–6 pm at the Durham Clayport Library.

Meet our staff! Get to know our members of staff at the department of music and find out more about their work and research interest in our series of videos: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/music/about-us/people/meet-our-staff/

Dr Kelly Jakubowski receives Early Career Award

Congratulations to Dr Kelly Jakubowski who received an Early Career Award from the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC). This is given to a scholar within 10 years of receiving their PhD "who has made outstanding research contributions to the study of music cognition and perception and shows continued promise to be a leader in the field".

Alexandros Spyrou’s ‘intra-’ performed at mise-en festival in New York City.

Dr. Alexandros Spyrou has recently returned from New York City, where his composition ‘intra-’ was featured at the 2024 mise-en festival. Selected from 1600 work submissions, ‘intra-’ was performed by Kelley Barnett at mise-en place, demonstrating Dr. Spyrou’s innovative augmentation of the flute through live electronics. Furthermore, Dr. Spyrou delivered a presentation on his work at the Music Department of New York University, providing an in-depth exploration of his compositional techniques and artistic vision. ‘intra-’ for flute and live electronics is available through Universal Edition (Vienna) and can be accessed for further study here: https://www.universaledition.com/en/Works/intra/P0284667

Dr Caroline Curwen Awarded Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Durham University

Dr Caroline Curwen has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for her research project titled “Musical Evoked Imaginings in Synaesthetic and Non-Synaesthetic Expert Musicians.” In October 2024, Dr Curwen will join Durham University’s Music Department to begin the three-year project

A PhD graduate from the University of Sheffield, Dr Curwen’s previous work has provided compelling empirical evidence on the role of synaesthesia in music perception, emphasising its embodied and enactive nature. The new project will closely align with Durham’s Dr Kelly Jakubowski’s ongoing research, also funded by the Leverhulme Trust, which examines the impact of music on imagination.

Eric Skytterholm Egan’s “Ábifruvvá”, premiered by Marie Schreer and John Garner in Durham last year, explores how the past is linked to the present through our relationship with the sea. Taking its title from the Sámi word for mermaid, the piece combines field recordings from boats at sea - rescored on violins - with sparse melodic material, reflecting on the harsh but fragile environment of Arctic Norway.

Listen to the recording here: https://youtu.be/aLbwgRM947A?feature=shared

Delian Academy for New Music 2024

Founded in 2017 by Dr Alexandros Spyrou, the Delian Academy for New Music is an international music institute in Cyclades, Greece specialising in programmes for composers and sound artists. This year, Dr Spyrou, who serves as director, collaborated with composers Mark Andre and Natasha Barrett alongside Ensemble Recherche and Reactive Ensemble on a series of educational and artistic activities including a research symposium, three concerts, one workshop, and one sound installation. Sixteen composers from around the world were selected to attend the programme which took place on the island of Tinos in Greece.

For more information, visit https://www.delianacademy.com/summeracademy2024