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Dr Lucy Hollingworth

Dr Lucy Hollingworth, photograph of the composer

Profile summary

  • Regional Academic Staff
  • Staff Tutor in Music
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Arts & Humanities
  • Music
  • lucy.hollingworth

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Professional biography

Lucy Hollingworth is a Staff Tutor in Music. 

She is a composer and feminist musicologist. She holds a MusB degree from Manchester University, a Postgraduate Certificate in Music from the Open University, a Master’s degree in composition from Edinburgh University, and PhD by composition portfolio and dissertation from St Andrews University/Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She also holds a Certificate in Education (post-compulsory).

As a Staff Tutor she is responsible for overseeing student and tutor support on Arts and Humanities modules, currently A111 Discovering the arts and humanities and A324 Central questions in the study of music. She also teaches on A234 Understanding music in the role of Associate Lecturer.

She is a trustee and active campaigner for Women in Music UK, a voluntary charitable organisation that promotes gender equality in the music industry.

Research interests

As a composer she often writes instrumental music for soloists and ensembles, with a particular interest in the string quartet as a genre. She has also worked with actors to create large scale work for music and the spoken word. She was twice a prizewinner at the Yorkshire Arts Association Young Composers’ Competition at the Huddersfield Festival and has had recent commissions from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Sound Scotland and Glasgow New Music Expedition. Recent commissions include Chaconne, a trio commissioned by Sound Festival Aberdeen and premiered by Red Note Ensemble in October 2018, and Let Me Speak for solo clarinet, performer Alex South, at Soundthought Glasgow, commissioned by Glasgow New Music Expedition and premiered in November, 2018.

As an academic writer she has had articles published nationally and internationally. Her areas of interest in musicology concern women composers, autoethnography, and analysis. ‘String Quartet as Autoethnography: The Writing of Out of the Snowstorm, an Owl (2014–17)’, was published in July 2019 in the ACT Journal http://act.maydaygroup.org/volume-18-issue-2/act-18-2-hollingworth/ and a book chapter about composition and autoethnography for the Routledge Handbook on Women's Work in Music published in 2022. She has also written book reviews. Her review of The kaleidoscope of women’s sounds in music of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, by Kheng K. Koay was published in the Scottish Journal of Performance September 2017 http://www.scottishjournalofperformance.org/Hollingworth_book-review-the-kaleidoscope_SJoP0401_DOI_10.14439sjop.2017.0401.08.html and her review of Gender, subjectivity, and cultural work: the classical music profession, by Christina Scharff was published in the same journal in September 2018 http://www.scottishjournalofperformance.org/Hollingworth_book-review-gender-subjectivity-cultural-work_SJoP0502_DOI_10.14439sjop.2018.0502.07.html.

Recent presentations of her research include ‘Composition as narrative‘ at the Open University Music Research Roundtable online in December 2023, ‘Passacaglia: Towards an Autoethnographic Understanding of Musical Form’ at ‘The Autoethnography Of Composition And The Composition Of Autoethnography’ organised by the University of Glasgow online in June 2020, 'I Lay Down By The Riverside And Dreamed – The Man Who Was My Muse’ at the Second International Conference on Women's Work in Music in Bangor University in September 2019, ‘Storytelling in Autoethnography – The Poetess’ at 'Beyond "Mesearch": Autoethnography, Self-Reflexivity, And Personal Experience As Academic Research In Music Studies' at the Institute for Musical Research in London in April 2018.

Teaching interests

She teaches on A234 Understanding Music at the Open University. She serves on the module teams for A234 and A342.

She previously taught research skills and supervised Master's degree projects at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and composition at the Academy of Music and Sound. She has also taught Information Technology and is an OCR qualified IT Trainer and Microsoft Professional.

She has written study materials for undergraduate BA composition students and a full scheme of work for HND level study of music for the Academy of Music and Sound.

Her teaching interests include music theory, analysis, composition, and feminist musicology.