Graduate Research Colloquium: Prof. Laura Tunbridge, Prof. Jonathan Cross with Prof. Sarah Hill (University of Oxford)

Free to attend, those wishing to attend virtually should complete this sign-up form to receive the weekly Zoom links.

In this session we'll discuss the mechanics of publishing your research, from submitting articles to peer-reviewed journals to your first book proposal. Each of us has extensive experience as authors and editors of books and journals (Popular Music (Hill), Music Analysis (Cross), Journal of the Royal Musical Association (Tunbridge)) and as reviewers of submissions to a range of academic presses. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions. 

Professor Sarah Hill

Sarah entered the field of popular music studies from a background in classical musicology, with a study of the relationship between post-war popular music and fifty years of political activism around the survival of the Welsh language. Her most recent book, San Francisco and the Long 60s (Bloomsbury, 2016) is a sustained microhistory of the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood, the development of the psychedelic musical culture in the years 1963-69, and an assessment of the legacy of the hippie era in the present day Bay Area. Some of the ethnographic material that Sarah collected for that book was the basis for a Radio 2 documentary, A Taste of Summer, which focused on the myth of the Summer of Love.

Sarah is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Progressive Rock (forthcoming 2021), and conducting research for a study of women rock critics and second-wave feminism in the 1970s. Her next publication will be an edited collection of short essays on one-hit wonders, which aims to offer a capsule history of changing popular music tastes, the inescapably mainstream, and the often maligned.

Professor Laura Tunbridge

Laura’s research has concentrated on German Romanticism, with a particular interest in reception through criticism, performance and composition. Schumann’s Late Style (Cambridge, 2007), considers the composer’s works from the 1850s, paying close attention to the way in which their interpretation and evaluation has been coloured by his biography.  The Song Cycle (Cambridge, 2010) traces a history of the genre from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. It explores how ideas about song cycles have been shaped by performers and recording technology, and how song cycles have interacted with other genres: from symphonies and operas to popular music. Her third monograph, Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performance in New York and London between the World Wars (Chicago, 2018), investigates vocal recitals in London and New York during the 1920s and 30s, examining transatlantic relationships, the politics of singing German-language song during the interwar period, the contexts for hearing lieder (from concert halls to vaudeville, ocean liners, luxury hotels and in the home), and the links between live concert practices and early recordings, radio and sound film. In 2020 Viking published Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces, named by The Times as one of the books of the year, and awarded ‘Best Composer Biography’ by Presto Books.

Laura was a founder member of the Oxford Song Network and has been a TORCH Knowledge Exchange Fellow, working with the Oxford Lieder Festival on Unlocking late Schumann. She is also a founder member of the Women’s Song Forum. She regularly gives pre-concert talks (including for Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Halle, the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Proms, the Oxford Lieder Festival, and the Southbank Centre), writes programme and liner notes (Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Salzburg Festival, Chandos, Delphian, Pentatone, all that dust) and book reviews (The Oldie, Times Literary Supplement) and appears on the radio (Record Review, Music Matters, Composer of the Week, In Our Time, Start the Week, In Business, Front Row). 

Professor Jonathan Cross

Jonathan joined Christ Church in 2003, having previously held posts at the University of Sussex and the University of Bristol. He writes, lectures and broadcasts widely on issues in twentieth-century and contemporary music, as well as in theory and analysis. His present work focuses on recent trends in French music, most notably the current known as ‘spectralism’. In all his work he is interested in understanding the ways in which modernist music articulates the concerns of the historical, cultural and social contexts within which it is made and received. Jonathan has been Editor of the journal Music Analysis, and is currently an Associate Editor of Grove Music Online. He is also a Research Associate in the team ‘Analyse des pratiques musicales’ at IRCAM, Paris. Beyond academe, Jonathan regularly participates in events with such organizations as the Southbank Centre, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta, as well as appearing on BBC Radio 3.

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 students Chuyu Zhang and Eugenie Dalgleish organise the series. Presentations are followed by a discussion and drinks reception. If you would like more information, please email Chuyu Zhang.