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Carlo Cenciarelli  BA (Soton) MMus (KCL) PhD (KCL)

Dr Carlo Cenciarelli

(he/him)

BA (Soton) MMus (KCL) PhD (KCL)

Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies

Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

I specialise on sound and the moving image, and I am particularly interested in the ways in which cinema—thorughout its history, but especially since the 1960s—has functioned as a 'cultural interface' for musical repertoires and audio technologies.

I have written on the media afterlife of classical and popular music and on the representation and remediation of listening in film, with essays published in edited collections and in journals including Twentieth-Century MusicCambridge Opera JournalMusic and Letters, Radical Musicology, the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and New Formations. I am the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening (OUP, 2021).

Before joining Cardiff, I was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London. I hold a PhD in Musicology from King’s College London. 

Publication

2023

2021

2018

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2009

2006

Articles

Book sections

Books

Conferences

Research

My research sits at the intersection of musicology, film theory, sound studies, and media studies, and revolves around the many ways in which the cinema (as a place, a technology, and body of texts) has shaped and continues to shape the functions and meanings of music in contemporary culture.

I have published work on the cinematic appropriation of J.S. Bach’s music (particularly the Goldberg Variations), the sound of indie cinema (particularly Jarmusch, Munch, and Linklater), the place of opera in digital culture (from opera DVDs to YouTube amateur performances), and the cinematic representation and remediation of playback technologies. My work can be found in edited collections and in journals including the Journal of the Royal Musical Associationtwentieth-century musicCambridge Opera Journal, Radical MusicologyMusic and Letters, and New Formations. I am the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening (OUP, 2021).

I am currently working on a monograph that explores the ‘cinematicity’ of personal stereos, using the cinema as vantage point to explore the cultural history and phenomenology of mobile listening.

Teaching

I teach research-led modules on music and media across all levels.

At UG level I teach a Year 2 module that aims to give students historical and theoretical frameworks for interpreting the role of sound in film ('Reading Film Sound') and a Year 3 sound studies module on the history of playback techologies ('Aural Cultures From the Phonograph to the Smartphone').

At MA level I run a seminar on the history, analysis, and criticism of musical multimedia ('Studying Musical Multimedia'), where we focus on a wide range of fictional and non-fictional screen genres including documentaries, news broadcasts, commercials, music video, video games, opera simulcasts, and online performances.

I have supervised UG and MA students on various issues in the history and theory of musical multimedia, and on a wider range of topics including musical borrowing, intertextuality, minimalism, and the history of recordings.

I am currently supervising PhD students on internet music, on the Lydian mode in Hollywood cinema, and on the gender implications of cinema's sensory turn. I welcome applications for topics related to film sound and to music, media, and technology more broadly.

Biography

Education and Qualifications

2011: PhD, King's College London

2005: MMus, King's College London

2003: BMus, University of Southampton

Honours and awards

Westrup Prize, awarded for articles of particular distinction published in Music and Letters, 2014

Premio Giuseppe Verdi, Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani, Parma, Italy, 2010

Professional memberships

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Academic positions

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Royal Holloway, University of London

Visiting Lecturer at Manchester University, City University, King's College London, Oxford Brookes, and Surrey University.

Committees and reviewing

Chair, Undergraduate Board of Studies (2020-current)

Chair, Examination and Year Boards (2020-current)

Director of Undergraduate Studies (2020-current)

Director of Undergraduate Admissions (2016-2018)

Convenor of the John Bird Lecture Series (2015-2020)

Supervisions

I am currently supervising PhD students on internet music, on the Lydian mode in Hollywood cinema, and on the gender implications of cinema's sensory turn. I welcome applications for topics related to film sound and to music, media, and technology more broadly.

Current supervision

Emma Payne

Emma Payne

Research student

Henry Morgan

Henry Morgan

Research student

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Film music
  • Cinema studies
  • Audio-visual theory and analysis
  • Sound Studies
  • History of Listening

External profiles