Conferences and other experience
Speaker engagements:
Babcock Lecture (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver), November 2023
Bodleian Library public lectures, two linked events, November 2023
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library public lecture, February 2020
International Council of Museums, Kyoto, September 2019
Conference papers
Truth, and how to find it
Fact vs Fiction conference at Wolfson College
April 2023
Playing Music Together in late-C18th England
Dance, Song, Music and Sociability 1750–1832 conference, DIGITENS EU Project and the Universities of Warwick, UEA and Notre Dame
March 2022
Sounding Out the Bate Collection (delivered with the Bate’s Education Officer Isabelle Carré)
Musical Instrument Collections Inspiring New Work at the Horniman Museum
January 2021
Never the Same Notes Twice
From Stave to Sound conference, Life-Writing Beyond Words, Oxford Centre for Life-Writing
October 2020
Collecting Tunes in Eighteenth-Century England
EFDSS conference, Traditional Tunes and Popular Airs: Exploring Musical Resemblance
October 2020
Education at the Bate Collection, University of Oxford: Past, Present and Future
International conference: Kyoto, Japan
Annual meeting of CIMCIM – International Committee for Musical Instrument Museums
September 2019
Anthony Baines at the Bate Collection
Musical Instrument Collectors and Collections conference, University of Oxford
August 2019
John Malchair, John and William Crotch, and eighteenth-century ‘national music’
Traditional Tunes and Popular Airs conferenece, University of Sheffield
June 2019
The Anthony Baines Archive at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments
Musical Instruments Resource Network conference, Musical Instruments Unwrapped: Telling Social Histories through Musical Instruments, St Cecelia’s Hall, Edinburgh
November 2019
The Life – and Times? – of John Malchair, 1730-1812
Biography and Public History conference, University of Nottingham
June 2018
It’s not what you know… John Malchair’s network of drawing pupils
EAERN (Eighteenth-Century Arts Education Research Network) annual colloquium, University of Glasgow
June 2018
Eighteenth-century music collecting in England: where are all the women?
Women’s Studies Group Annual Workshop, Foundling Museum, London
May 2018
For the sake of difference: John Malchair’s tune comparisons, 1760-95
English Folk Dance and Song Society conference, Traditional Tunes and Popular Airs, London
October 2017
Music Across Borders: categorising ‘national music’ in eighteenth-century Oxford
Interdisciplinary conference, Borders, Boundaries, and Beyond in the Long Eighteenth-Century, University of Sheffield
April 2017
How to Die: Victorian working-class attitudes towards death in broadside ballads
Death and Culture conference, University of York
September 2016
Seminar papers
Musical Instruments and Museums
Music MSt elective course (4 seminars), University of Oxford
Hilary Term 2024
John Malchair: Musician, Artist, and Teacher
Education in the Long Eighteenth Century Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London
February 2019
John Malchair, William Crotch, and ‘national music’ in Oxford, 1790-1805
Graduate Research Colloquium, Faculty of Music, University of Oxford
January 2019
How much evidence do you need?
Oxford Centre for Life Writing, Wolfson College, Oxford
February 2018
Categorising ‘national music’ in eighteenth-century Oxford
Eighteenth-Century Research Seminar, University of Edinburgh
March 2017
Collecting Places: John Malchair’s drawings of eighteenth-century Oxford, in the context of his music collecting
Reading Images Seminar, Ashmolean Museum
February 2017
What did Oxford sound like in 1784? A musical snapshot based on the tune collections of J. B. Malchair
Graduate Seminar in History, University of Oxford
February 2017
Public engagement activities and museum exhibitions curated
Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries temporary exhibition: ‘The Dancing Master’
Showcasing tunebooks published by John Playford and similar items; alongside TORCH HCP grant for concerts, workshops, and a Playford Ball
September 2023–January 2024
Meeting Minds
Public lectures for the University’s alumni festival
Sept 2023 and April 2022
Protagonists and Antagonists in Your Life Story
Workshop run as part of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing’s international writing course, Tuscany
July 2022
Writer in Residence, Wytham Woods
Activities including writing, talks and workshops
2020–2023, continuing to present as Associate Writer in Residence
C18th Manuscripts and the Archives
Talk for postgraduates, Corpus Christi College
February 2020
Historical Conceptions of Englishness
Roundtable discussion, Wolfson College
November 2019
The Tunebooks of J. B. Malchair: some conclusions
Talk for Early Career Researchers, Music Faculty, University of Oxford
May 2018
The Music of J. B. Malchair - stories and tunes from William Crotch’s ‘Malchair MS’
Concert (featuring Alice Little - violin and Danny Chapman - cello) with commentary, St Cross College
March 2017
Seasonal Songs and Forgotten Tunes
Composition workshop with an introduction to Percy Manning’s music collections, Music Faculty
March 2017
Bate Collection, temporary exhibition: ‘Oxfordshire Morris Dance’
Displaying historical and contemporary items relating to cotswold and border morris dance
2008
Kneller Hall Museum, Royal Military School of Music
Two new permanent exhibitions: ‘History of Kneller Hall’ and ‘Bandsman Thomas Rendle VC’
Telling the history of the collection and the first Army Musician to win the Victoria Cross
2006–7
Knowledge exchange activities
TORCH Knowledge Exchange Fellowships: two awards in partnership with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 2019 and 2020
Databases for Music Research: multidisciplinary network meetings including researchers and non-academics, 2019–present
#EnglishTunebook: a crowdsourced collection of ‘English’ tunes for the modern day, 2021
Podcast: Folk Tunes and Englishness, Bird Lime Media, 2021
Conferences organised
Materiality and the Meaning of Musical Instruments’, with the Galpin Society. June 2024 (4 days)
Writing Jewish Women’s Lives, for the Vera Fine-Grodzinski Programme. March 2024
Publishing Non-Fiction, for Oxford Writing Mentors. October 2023
Writing Women, for the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. January 2023
Writing about Living People, for the Society of Authors. January 2023
International Writing Course and Retreat, Tuscany, with the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. July 2022 (7 days)
Exploring Musical Resemblance, with the English Folk Dance and Song Society. October 2020 (2 days)
Collectors and Collections of Musical Instruments, for the Bate Collection. August 2019 (3 days)
Soldiers’ Tales: Collecting and Sharing Military and Musical Heritage, for the Musical Instruments Resource Network. August 2019
The Process of Publishing, with TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities. February 2019
Cultures of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland, with Romanticism and Eighteenth-Century Studies, Oxford. February 2017
Seminar series convened
Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Visiting Researchers’ Seminar (weekly), 2020–present
OCLW Research Network Seminar (termly), 2022–present
OCLW public events programme, including (per term) 26 internal seminars across 4 strands/audiences, 6 public lectures, and 10 other public events: 60 events per year, 2020–present
Instruments of the Eighteenth Century: a series of 9 gallery talks at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, featuring curators and organologists. Funded by the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and TORCH. 2017–18
Teaching
Music Faculty (Oxford), Musical Instruments and Museums (MSt module), 2023–present
Lady Margaret Hall (Oxford), Creative Writing (undergraduates), 2022–present
Exeter College (Oxford), Creative Writing (undergraduates), 2022–23
Exeter College (Oxford), Museum Studies (undergraduates), 2023
Wolfson College (Oxford), Creative Non-Fiction (public class), 2022–present
Wolfson College (Oxford), Writing Programme Mentor, 2022–present
Wytham Woods (Oxford), Creative Writing and Nature/Climate Writing (public programme), 2020–23
Freelance instrumental tuition (in Oxford and Leicester) for individuals/groups, children/adults, 2006–2015
Yamaha Music School (Sutton Courtenay), class teacher, 2006–2010
Committee and board memberships
Research Staff Consultation Group (Oxford), 2023–present
Curators of the University Parks (Oxford), 2023–present
Folk Music Journal, editorial board, 2022–present
Galpin Society committee, 2021–present
Society of Authors, Oxfordshire co-ordinator, 2020–present
Musical Instruments Resource Network committee, 2018–present
Friends of the Bate Collection committee, 2015–present
Romanticism and Eighteenth-Century Studies, Oxford (RECSO) committee, 2016–19