Staff profile

Samuel Horlor is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee in the Department of Music, Durham University.

Previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Ethnomusicology, Yunnan University (China), he is an ethnomusicologist and scholar of popular music currently most interested in global street music, Chinese-language performances in the UK, and audience research.

Samuel is currently serving as President of CHIME, European Platform for Chinese Music Research.

In 2023, his article Audiencing in China: Foreign Rock Musicians’ Perceptions of Difference and Sameness won the Association for Chinese Music Research Rulan Chao Pian Publication Prize.

He is also the author of Chinese Street Music: Complicating Musical Community (Cambridge University Press), and co-editor (with James Williams) of Musical Spaces: Place, Performance, and Power (Jenny Stanford Publishing).

Samuel holds degrees from the University of Southampton (BA Music 2007) and Durham University (MA Ethnomusicology 2012 and PhD 2017).

See Samuel's ResearchGate profile.

• Ethnomusicology
• Popular music studies
• Chinese music
• Street music
• Music in everyday life
• Audience research

Authored book

• Chinese Street Music: Complicating Musical Community
  Horlor, S. (2021). Chinese Street Music: Complicating Musical Community. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913232

Book review

• The Sounds of Social Space: Branding, Built Environment, and Leisure in Urban China
  Horlor, S. (2020). The Sounds of Social Space: Branding, Built Environment, and Leisure in Urban China. Ethnomusicology Forum, 29(1), 136-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2020.1752762

Chapter in book

• The Amateur and the Professional in Wuhan’s Park Pop
  Horlor, S. (2023). The Amateur and the Professional in Wuhan’s Park Pop. In J. P. J. Stock, & Y. Hui (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Music in China and the Chinese Diaspora (431-451). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190661960.013.26
• A Social Aesthetics of Imperfection: Spontaneity and Meaning in Pop on the Streets of China
  Horlor, S. (2021). A Social Aesthetics of Imperfection: Spontaneity and Meaning in Pop on the Streets of China. In A. Hamilton, & L. Pearson (Eds.), The aesthetics of imperfection in music and the arts : spontaneity, flaws and the unfinished (73-85). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350106086.0017

Conference Paper

• Money, Music, and Interpersonal Meanings: Researching Economic Exchange in Local Musicking in China and Thailand
  Horlor, S., & Amaro, T. (2021, December). Money, Music, and Interpersonal Meanings: Researching Economic Exchange in Local Musicking in China and Thailand. Presented at Moving from Disruption to Resilience: The Dynamics of Humanities and Social Sciences, Naresuan University, Thailand

Edited book

• Performing Bodies [Special Issue: European Journal of Musicology, 23(1)]
  Horlor, S., & Leante, L. (Eds.). (2025). Performing Bodies [Special Issue: European Journal of Musicology, 23(1)]. Bern Open Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5450/EJM.23.1.2025
• Musical Spaces: Place, Performance, and Power
  Williams, J., & Horlor, S. (Eds.). (2021). Musical Spaces: Place, Performance, and Power. Jenny Stanford Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003180418
• Geography, Music, Space (Volume 1) [Special Issue: Musicology Research Journal, 4]
  Horlor, S., & Williams, J. (Eds.). (2018). Geography, Music, Space (Volume 1) [Special Issue: Musicology Research Journal, 4]. University of Derby

Journal Article

• Theorizing Audiency
  Horlor, S., Pearson, L., & Polak, R. (in press). Theorizing Audiency. Journal of the Royal Musical Association,
• Ubiquitous Audiency: Recorded Music and Attention in Everyday Public-space Encounters in China
  Horlor, S. (in press). Ubiquitous Audiency: Recorded Music and Attention in Everyday Public-space Encounters in China. Journal of the Royal Musical Association,
• Round Table: Audiency Beyond the Concert Hall: Theory and Ethnographic Case Studies
  Horlor, S. (in press). Round Table: Audiency Beyond the Concert Hall: Theory and Ethnographic Case Studies. Journal of the Royal Musical Association,
• Audiencing in China: Foreign Rock Musicians’ Perceptions of Difference and Sameness
  Horlor, S. (2022). Audiencing in China: Foreign Rock Musicians’ Perceptions of Difference and Sameness. Popular Music and Society, 45(5), 584-599. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2022.2111123
• Chinese Street Pop and Performing with the Urban Environment
  Horlor, S. (2020). Chinese Street Pop and Performing with the Urban Environment. Etnografie Sonore/ Sound Ethnographies, 2(1), 39-68
• Neutralizing Temporary Inequities in Moral Status: Chinese Street Singers and the Gift Economy
  Horlor, S. (2019). Neutralizing Temporary Inequities in Moral Status: Chinese Street Singers and the Gift Economy. Asian music, 50(2), 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1353/amu.2019.0013
• Popular Song Afterlives: Oral Transmission and Mundane Creativity in Street Performances of Chinese Pop Classics
  Horlor, S. (2019). Popular Song Afterlives: Oral Transmission and Mundane Creativity in Street Performances of Chinese Pop Classics. Journal of World Popular Music, 6(1), 10-31. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.34195
• Permeable Frames: Intersections of the Performance, the Everyday, and the Ethical in Chinese Street Singing
  Horlor, S. (2019). Permeable Frames: Intersections of the Performance, the Everyday, and the Ethical in Chinese Street Singing. Ethnomusicology Forum, 28(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2019.1590725