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Musicology, Page 4

Awakening Sleeping Beauty

Dr Kate Guthrie, who is British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department, tells us about a new article that has just come out: Margot Fonteyn as Princess Aurora and Robert Helpmann as Prince Florimund in the Awakening scene (Act III) of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet production of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ (1946) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Last week, my article ‘Awakening The Sleeping Beauty: The Creation of National Ballet in Britain’ came out in Music... Continue reading →

New recording of modern harpsichord

Photo: Drew Kelly We’re delighted to congratulate Southampton postgraduate research student Christopher Lewis on the release of his new CD on the Naxos label.  Christopher specialises in music for the revival harpsichord, and his PhD work is part of the “Making of the Modern Harpsichord” project sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the National Trust. Continue reading →

Harpsichords at Cheltenham

This week postgraduate researcher and harpsichordist Christopher Lewis starred as player and presenter at the Cheltenham Music Festival –  for ‘A History of the Modern Harpsichord: An Afternoon at the Salle Cortot’.  Here he tells us more about the purpose of the event : The university’s Feldberg harpsichord on holiday in Cheltenham Early on Monday, a small group of us from the University of Southampton departed for the prestigious Cheltenham Music Festival. Continue reading →

La Vittoria – Waterloo in music

Katrina Faulds (left) and Penelope Cave at Chawton House Library Katrina Faulds has recently finished her PhD on dance and dance music in the English country house c. 1800.  She is also an accomplished performer on early pianos, and last week saw her presenting some of her research in sound: In November last year,  Dr Penelope Cave and I were offered the opportunity to perform a concert at Chawton House Library as part of the Music department’s regular collaborative series. Continue reading →

Electric Guitar Conference in Bowling Green, USA

Skip McDonald PhD composition student Ben Jameson tells us about his recent trip to conference over in the USA: The ‘Electric Guitar in Popular Culture’ conference took place at Bowling Green State University, Ohio at the end of March. The conference was organised by Dr. Matt Donahue from the u niversity’s Department of Popular Culture and brought together scholars and musicians from around North America and the rest of the world with a shared enthusiasm for the electric guitar. Continue reading →

Meet the pianos

Almost all of our students and staff use some form of keyboard nearly every day.  They are indispensable for a whole range of our activities – whether for solo performance or accompaniment, for bands and ensembles, or for working out harmony exercises and new composition ideas. Because keyboards are so central to our programmes, they also represent the largest cost in our performance budget.  We are starting a new funding drive to help. Continue reading →

The Cello Suites and Mrs Bach

PhD researcher Nadya Markovska reflects on controversies of authorship and what this says about our attitudes to performance and composition: Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello (BWV 1007-1012) are among the most famous pieces in the canon of Western music. Recent claims by the Australian researcher Martin Jarvis about their authorship have become a media sensation, causing heated scholarly debates in normally restrained musicological circles. Continue reading →

Celebrating women composers

Barbara Strozzi Professor of Music Laurie Stras has been working on a programme for a special BBC3 event: Next Sunday is International Women’s Day, and BBC Radio 3 is marking the occasion with a weekend of programmes celebrating female composers, including live concerts and discussion panels, documentaries and debate. I’m taking part along with one of my Southampton colleagues. Continue reading →

One week, two operas

Dr Francesco Izzo (Senior Lecturer in Music) talks about recent opera productions: Paula Murrihy (Orontea) and Sebastian Geyer (Creonte); Photo Monika Rittershaus I go to the opera frequently, but the past week has been an especially exciting one. On Sunday, 8 February at the Frankfurt Opera, I had the opportunity to attend one of the rare modern performances of Antonio Cesti’s L’Orontea—one of the most successful operas of the mid seventeenth century. Continue reading →