Research Forum

Welcome to the Music Department’s 2025-2026 Research Forum. We are extremely pleased to once again be able to offer a fantastic programme of events and to welcome inspiring and distinguished speakers from all musical disciplines.

Sessions take place on a Tuesday at 13:00 - 14:30 in the Concert Room, Divinity House. 

Programme for Michaelmas 2025 

Tuesday, 7th October

Music Department Research Culture 

Tuesday, 14th October

Domestic Music Performance by Women During Elizabethan England: The case of two manuscripts, GB-Lcm MS 20235 and 203 (Dr. Hector Sequera Mora)

Tuesday, 21st October

Academic mentoring workshop 'What gets in the way of good mentoring?' (Prof. Megan Bruce)

Tuesday, 28th of October

The Empire Strikes Back? An Ottoman Occidentalist’s View of Universal Music History, 1889 (Dr. Jacob Olley)

Tuesday, 4th of November

Research Funding Trajectories in Music (with guest speaker Gemma Metcalfe - RIS)

Tuesday, 11th of November 

Research Visibility Session: How Best to Publicise and Promote Our Research (with guest speaker Dionne Hamil - Marketing and Communications)

Tuesday, 18th of November 

Singing angels, niche musical tastes, and how music might not be a universal language: Examples for a transdisciplinary aesthetic of music (Prof. Dr. Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann (Max Planck Institute))

Tuesday, 25th of November - Note different location for this session - ER278, Elvet Riverside II, 2nd floor. 

Adding value to your research through using resources available in the Durham Library collections and archives (Jonathan Bush and Francis Gotto - library and collections)

Tuesday, 2nd of December 

Engagement and impact workshop Discussion session (Speakers: Prof. Laura Leante, with an update from the Composing Ecology impact case study by James Weeks, and guest appearance by Dr Adam L Holden (Senior Impact & Engagement Manager))

Tuesday, 9th of December Postgraduate talks

Speakers:

Chris Massa “The Word Made Sound: Pitch Symbolism and Harmonic Fields in Contemporary Passion Composition”
Ryan Shirlow “Fairy Folk: Mysterious Music and Supernatural Sounds”
Mike Mitchell “Formal Characters and Caricatures in the Opening of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony”

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Programme for Epiphany Term 2026

 

Tuesday, 13th of January 

Carl Nielsen’s Four Temperaments (Dr Christopher Tarrant (Newcastle University))

Tuesday, 20th of January In partnership with CVAC – Centre for Visual Arts and Cultures 

“lettura del labirinto” presentation followed by a MUSICON premiere of the composition on the 21st of January - tickets (Professor Richard Rijnvos)  

Tuesday, 27th of January 

How does music shape imagination? (Professor Kelly Jakubowski)

Tuesday, 3rd of February 

How Meaning is Constructed Around Musical Harmony (Dr Mauro Orsini Windholz (University of Würzburg)) 

Tuesday, 10th of February 

Title TBC (Dr Gayle Murchinson (Visiting Fellow at University of York))

Tuesday, 17th of February 

Austrofascism on Tour: Fascist Connections and Competition in International Musical Life in the 1930s (Dr Friedemann Pestel)

Tuesday, 24th of February 

Victorian Literature as Queer Musicology (Dr Fraser Riddell (Durham University, Department of English Studies))

Tuesday, 3rd of March 

Female conductors today and the challenges they face Discussion session with Alice Farnham and Dr James Weeks 

Tuesday, 10th of March 

In Search of Daphne Oram (Dr Harriet Boyd-Bennett (University of Nottingham))

Tuesday, 17th of March 

Postgraduate talks – speakers TBC 

Take a look at our events pages or Music SharePoint site for more details.

Postgraduate Seminar

The Postgraduate Seminar is the platform for our postgraduate students to present their own research to peers and staff. Contributions take the form of formal papers or use more creative presentation formats, and lead to group discussion.

Study Days and Conferences

Postgraduate students organise conferences of various kinds, centred upon particular themes and often working in partnership with external funders. These events feature invited keynote speakers and issue open calls for papers to postgraduate and senior scholars from around the country and overseas.