Dr Jonathan Packham

Jonathan Packham is a composer and researcher with interests in a variety of contemporary experimental music and sonic arts. He completed a DPhil in Music at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford in 2021, supported by an AHRC DTP studentship.

Some of his recent compositions include ghost for electronics and ensemble, a tetralogy of clubadjacent releases under his electronic alias SALINGER via EXPO, pavilion lovesong number 1, commissioned by SONCITIES, and SLOWLY SHRINKING WORLDS, commissioned by trombonist Sebastiaan Kemner. In 2020 he won the EMPRES Award for Experimental Electronic Music for his collaborative composition FISSION, co-written with producer Xactus. Since late 2016 he has been experimenting with live-generated video scores in virtual environments using VR headset technologies, as exemplified in 2019’s SECRET ANIMALS.

Jonathan has published writing on experimental music and sonic art in peer-reviewed academic journals Leonardo, TEMPO, and the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, for the National Centre for Research Methods, and in an essay collection titled Crafting a Sonic Urbanism: the Political Voice II assembled by Theatrum Mundi. In 2024 he co-convened a one-day international conference called ‘Creative Machines: Technology and Collaborative Practice in Contemporary Music’ at Royal Holloway, University of London.

He is Departmental Lecturer in Music Composition at the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, Postdoctoral Research Assistant on Cyborg Soloists at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Stipendiary Lecturer in Music at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. Between 2022 and 2023 he was Organising Tutor in Music at Lady Margaret Hall, and in 2024 he held a Stipendiary Lectureship at Worcester College.