Graduate Research Colloquium: Prof. Jane Ginsborg (Royal Northern College of Music)
The singer as researcher
Free to attend, register here.
Over the course of the past 25 years a great deal of my research has been informed by my own experience as a former professional singer. As an applied psychologist I am particularly interested in the cognitive processes that underlie expert performance and preparation for performance, including practising and memorizing, and the social processes typical of rehearsal and collaborative music making. I have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to work – and to publish – with other musicians interested in undertaking research on their own practice. While this talk will focus on the studies I have carried out in this field, I will also describe (briefly!) some of my other research on topics including virtuosity, musicians’ health and wellbeing, and the experiences of freelance self-employed orchestral musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jane Ginsborg studied music at the University of York and singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In the late 1970s and 1980s she established a successful career as a freelance concert singer specializing in 20th century and contemporary music before taking a bachelor’s degree in psychology with the Open University (1994) and a PhD at Keele University (1999). She won the British Voice Association’s Van Lawrence Award in 2002 for her research on singers’ memorizing strategies and was shortlisted for a Times Higher Education award in 2013 for research on musicians with hearing impairments. She is Professor of Music Psychology and Associate Director of Research at the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester, UK) where she has worked since 2005. Former President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (2012-2015), she is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Musicae Scientiae. She has co-authored a textbook, Performing Music Research: Methods in Music Education, Psychology, and Performance Science (Oxford University Press, 2021), and many articles and book chapters on expert individual and collaborative practice, rehearsal and performance, particularly involving singing; musicians’ health and wellbeing, health literacy and resilience; practice-led research; and virtuosity.
About the series:
The Colloquia feature leading figures, as well as younger scholars, from across the world. They present their research in papers on all kinds of music-related topics. Graduate student Judith Valerie Engel organises the series. Presentations are followed by a discussion and drinks reception. If you would like more information, please email judith-valerie.engel@chch.ox.ac.uk.
