‘Renaissance Synthesisers’ PhD (2020-2024)

Doctoral research project at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire funded by the UKRI Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership

From 2020 to 2024, I completed a doctoral research project at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire titled ‘Renaissance Synthesisers: New Frameworks for Composition and Performance with Early Music Instruments’.

Situated within the emergent post-HIP scene, the project used research practice to approach the questions: what new compositional and performance vocabularies arise from experimentation with Early Music instruments, creative technologies, and mixed or digital media, and how does this practice relate and contribute to broader cultural frameworks? Objects of study included Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque musical instruments (including modern copies and originals held in museum collections), as well as new studio and performance technologies, film, and recorded media. Creative practice was the primary means of research while exegetic reflection then drew on ideas from musicology, historiography, philosophy, and sociology to refine an understanding of the meanings of that practice. In particular, the project explored the relationship between post-HIP and issues of post-postmodernity.

The project was completed under the supervision of Professor Joe Cutler, Professor Jamie Savan, and Dr Andrew Hamilton and was examined by Professor Christopher Fox and Dr Ed Bennett in 2024. It was funded by the UKLRI Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.