We’re delighted to announce that PhD student Stephen Wilford has been awarded an Early Career Research Fellowship by the Institute of Musical Research (IMR) for the 2016-17 academic year.

Stephen will be based in the Department of Music at City University London and will be working with Dr Laudan Nooshin (Reader in Music) on a project entitled ‘Music and Digital Cultures in the Middle East and North Africa’. The project, which is also being funded by the Research Office at City University London through their Pump Priming scheme, will examine the role of digital technologies (particularly the Internet) in the changing cultural landscape of the region. Their work will examine how the Internet facilities the sharing of music in different contexts and across various platforms, and will have a particular focus on how this shapes ideas of public and private spaces across the region. The IMR will provide funding to run a networking conference within the Department of Music, with the aim of bringing together scholars from different disciplines and institutions who share an interest in contemporary digital cultures in the Middle East and North Africa. The networking event will be run in late 2016/early 2017, and further details will be announced over the coming months.