Log in
Stephen Rose's research on the sources and contexts of German music 1500-1750 has benefited amateur musicians, professional musicians and commercial concert-life. Building on his research in early music-printing, his digitisation project Early Music Online has provided musicians worldwide with digitised copies of over 10,000 pieces of early printed music previously available only to researchers visiting the British Library. His research on the contexts of German music has influenced concert programming at the highest international level, enhancing public awareness of the cultural meanings of the music they hear, and introducing them to unfamiliar repertory that puts one of the giants of western music—J. S. Bach—in historical context.
Research on the history, repertoires and performance cultures of brass instruments has reconfigured the international music community's understanding of how brass instruments have been played in the past and has unveiled new repertoires. The results are new understandings of performance techniques and instrumentation that continue to influence creative practice among leading professional performers. The findings from the research are recognised as major points of reference for professional and amateur performers, and have also contributed to work in the heritage industry and to that of print and broadcast media professionals. The research has also been translated for wider consumption in pivotal publications such as Grove Music Online, which features new entries on bands and individual brass instruments. The research also inspired Music in Words, the seminal textbook for teachers and students of music performance outside the higher education sector.
Scott's research impacts upon the portrayal and representation of a broad range of popular musics in the media, TV, and radio programmes, as well as at international music festivals and concerts. Placing popular music in the context of modernism and nationalism, Scott has contributed to the resurrection and reinvigoration of genres such as nineteenth-century parlour ballads, light opera, and operetta—as well as their recognition as popular music, predating the term's association with twentieth-century jazz or rock'n'roll—highlighting the socio-cultural and historical context of these musics, alongside their historical significance and continuing importance.
Dibble's research on Britain and Ireland's neglected Victorian and Edwardian composers, particularly Hubert Parry (1848-1918), Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and John Stainer (1840-1901), together with his public engagement and media work, has had a considerable influence on British musical culture. As a result of Dibble's research there has been a substantial increase in the performance, programming and recording of works by these composers, leading to enhanced awareness, enjoyment and understanding of this repertory and its importance to the nation's musical heritage. This research has also led to increased public access to archival documents related to this music, brought work to orchestras and choirs and contributed to the sales generated by music, CD and DVD publishers.
With a series of three CDs, created by his ensemble The Dowland Project on the ECM label, Dr John Potter succeeded in bringing early vocal music that was formerly the preserve of the `classical' concert hall into the realm of contemporary practice, including jazz. The CDs and the public performances that followed them, influenced the creative practice of leading professional musicians from both sides of the jazz/classical divide, and directly inspired the creation of an innovative digital work by Ambrose Field (Being Dufay), which has itself received international acclaim through CD reviews and public performance in significant venues. Potter's work has played a significant part in the preservation and reinvigoration of musical heritage, while proposing and demonstrating a new creative approach to early music.
Since 2008, Baily has reached out to Afghanistan's shattered communities, using music to recuperate their musical culture and rebuild their sense of identity. Baily's work falls into three categories: education about Afghan music, in and outside Afghan communities; preservation of Afghan musical culture; and deploying musical practice to restore community identity and dignity. His post-2008 work builds on his pioneering research and the Afghanistan Music Unit, founded in 2002. His scholarship is rooted in research, practice, networks, and decades of experience, giving him unique insight into Afghanistan's music and its citizens at home and abroad. Through his interactions with musicians, educators and policy-makers, as well as his own public performances, films and educational work, his research has had a major and direct influence in sustaining Afghan culture, both in Afghanistan and in its worldwide diaspora in Pakistan, Iran, Australia, Germany and the USA, as well as the UK.
This case study describes how collaboration with museums enabled research conducted and directed by Sara Cohen and Marion Leonard of the Institute of Popular Music (IPM) to:
Music reflects and frequently empowers its listeners. Freedom of artistic expression is a right enshrined in international conventions which is under threat in many countries across the world. Research undertaken at the University of Glasgow (UoG) by Martin Cloonan in the censorship, regulation and legislation of music has informed and had a direct impact on a number of different anti-censorship campaigns at both national and international levels. In the UK his work has informed policy changes, specifically in relation to the licensing of smaller live venues; and, internationally his expertise has supported the establishment of key bodies such as Freemuse, the World Forum on Music and Censorship, which lobbies against the imprisonment and censorship of musicians.
Dr Lucy Duran's ethnomusicological research into the traditional musical forms, cultural practices and instruments of Mali has underpinned the studio production of two internationally acclaimed albums, Segu Blue, winner of two BBC Radio 3 Music Awards for Best World Music Album and Best African Artist in 2008, and I Speak Fula, a 2010 Grammy nominee for Best Traditional World Music Album. Both have raised awareness amongst musicians and global audiences of Bamana musical traditions, including the ngoni, the oldest of the West African lutes and, until Segu Blue, an instrument hardly known beyond West Africa.
Recent work carried out in Cambridge has brought academic research and performance practice into multiple relationships; the impact of this work has been far-reaching and various. On the one hand, research on the origins of polyphony and on nineteenth-century piano music has impacted performance practice and, through this, the experiences and thinking of a broad listening public. Some of this research has enabled performers to revive scores long thought unperformable, while other work has empowered interpreters in ways that would have been unimaginable before the digital age. On the other hand, research that links polyphonic composition and performance practice with scientific thinking has explored the potential of the concert hall as an arena for research, turning music into a vehicle for public engagement with science. In this way, academic research informs and transforms musical performance and listener experience, while the practice of performance informs and transforms the understanding of music.