News

  • The outside of the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Rome

    Music academic publishes new research on an unknown composer

    On 25 March, the feast of the Annunciation, the congregation of a small church in Oxford heard music by Paolo Papini for the first time in over four hundred years. Ensemble Res Sacra led by Thomas Neal sang three pieces by Papini that I transcribed from manuscript as part of my research on music at the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome. The hospital was a large charitable institution founded to care for abandoned infants and orphans and the sick poor but was also musically active employing a professional choir and organist.

  • a photocopy of a music piece

    Music article showcased by Brill

    A recent article by Robert Samuels (Music), on the composers Robert Schumann, Fryderyk Chopin, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, has been showcased by its publisher, DeGruyter Brill (Leiden).

  • Xylophone with mallets, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Byron Dueck (Music) awarded Leverhulme Research Fellowship

    Professor Byron Dueck (Music) has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship supporting his research on xylophone traditions in Cameroon.

  • CD cover image featuring a towering iceberg in the process of melting into the ocean.

    Free Range Orchestra - CD release "D R I F T"

    New CD release by the Free Range Orchestra featuring a new commission from Stevie Wishart and other improvisations.

  • By H. Humphreys - From File:The First Methodist chapel called "The Foundry" - Capel Cyntaf y Methodistiaid Wesleyaidd a Adnabyddid Wrth "Y Foundry".jpeg Cropped and improved contrast, Public Domain

    Music academic completes new edition of the first Methodist tune book

    Prof Martin Clarke completes a new edition and recordings of The Foundery Collection (1742), providing insights into the sound-world of early Methodism.

  • The image is a creative depiction of tinnitus, produced as part of the 2021 Tinnitus and the Arts workshops. It shows a series of horizontal black lines evenly spaced across a light background, resembling ruled lines on a page. In the centre, there is a small irregular dark shape that disrupts the uniformity of the lines.

    Keynote talk on Tinnitus’ Silences at Brazil conference

    OU Music academic Marie Thompson gives a keynote talk on tinnitus’ silences at the 4th International Conference on Sonorities Research (CIPS) at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil.

  • New book: Korngold in America: Music, Myth, and Hollywood

    A new book on opera and film composer Erich Korngold (1897-1957), written by Music lecturer Ben Winters, has been published by Oxford University Press in their Music/Media series.

  • Title card of "Bandleader Mrs Mary Hamer and Her Boys" with the front cover of the book.

    Bandleader Mrs Mary Hamer and Her Boys

    Dr Laura Hamer has published a new CUP Women in Music Element, "Bandleader Mrs Mary Hamer and Her Boys".

  • Image card contains the title text and the front page of a magazine, The New Moon, the Crichton Royal Institution Literary Register, followed by a full page of musical notation in the form of a song, Henri & Mariane.

    Concerts and cures in nineteenth-century Scotland

    Rosemary Golding’s latest article examines the social and therapeutic roles of music in a nineteenth-century Scottish asylum, demonstrating its links with memory and identity.

  • Cover illustration of the Polyphonic Cornett album. Dark blue background with a pale gold circular design in the centre. Titles and artist credits are at the top and the bottom.

    The Polyphonic Cornett album released

    A collaboration between James Dooley (The Open University) and Jamie Savan (Birmingham City University), The Polyphonic Cornett (album released November 2024) presents music exploring the intersection of ‘old’ musical instruments with ‘new’ music technology.

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