Academic supervisors
The people make the place
The Cardiff School of Music is a lively and ambitious centre dedicated to world-leading research, composition and performance.
Our staff are discovering Haydn's forgotten quartets, composing for the New York Philharmonic, addressing the dark side of music and conflict, exploring postmodernism in music, revealing Birtwistle's compositional process, transforming the way period-instrument orchestras perform Beethoven, and cracking the code of the Yoruba Bata Drum.
These webpages will be updated over the coming weeks and will allow you to find out a little bit more about our staff and their research interests. You can also access a full listing of our academic staff.
Please note that the areas of supervisory interest listed on these pages are just a selection. If you are interested in an area not mentioned here, please contact the School for an informal discussion.
Dr Keith Chapin
Interested in supervising: 18th to 20th-century French, German, and Austrian musical cultures (including cultural transfers between them); Historical music aesthetics (particularly when combined with music analysis and history); History of music theory and analysis; Cross-currents between literature, philosophy, and music; Critical theory
Dr Amanda Villepastour
Interested in supervising: Traditional and/or popular music in Africa and the diaspora; Linguistic studies in music; Organological studies
Dr Clair Rowden
Interested in supervising: Opera and musical theatre (any aspects); French and Italian nineteenth-century opera; French music and music in France in the long nineteenth century; Reception studies; Gender; Cultural studies dealing with France in the long nineteenth century
Professor Rachel Cowgill
Interested in supervising: The Eisteddfod and musical negotiations of Welsh identity in nineteenth-century Britain; Female vocality and embodiment in operatic performance; Music in Victorian coastal resorts and ports; Transatlantic connections in music before 1950; British music, war and memorialisation
Dr Kenneth Gloag
Interested in supervising: All aspects of 20th century music, but in particular British music; The music of Tippett; Analytical issues in the music of Stravinsky; Modernism; Postmodernism; Critical and cultural theory
Dr Arlene Sierra
Interested in supervising: Composition
Dr David Beard
Interested in supervising: Twentieth-century British music; Post-1945 music in general, especially opera and experimental music theatre; Source studies in contemporary music; Contemporary music and politics; Ethnographic studies and contemporary music; Ethnicity in twentieth-century music; Popular music
Dr Sarah Hill
Interested in supervising: Popular music historiography; politics and popular music; music in minority language cultures
Dr John Morgan O'Connell
Interested in supervising: Musical Traditions of the Middle East and Central Asia; Musical Traditions of Europe and the European Diaspora; Musical Aesthetics in a Cross-Cultural Perspective; Critical Approaches to the Study of Ethnomusicology
Professor Robin Stowell
Interested in supervising: Historically Informed Performance; Performance Studies; Violins, violinists and violin playing through history; Chamber Music; Stringed instruments and string performance; Early Recordings; Editorial Techniques
Dr Robert Fokkens
Interested in supervising: Composition