Category Archives: Alumni

Centre for Music Studies hosts City Music Careers Evening

The Centre for Music Studies hosted a major event, ‘Careers with a Music Degree’, in the Performance Space at City University London on Tuesday 12 February 2013 from 6-9pm.

The event welcomed external speakers from a range of different music-related professions including venue management, teaching, freelance performance, the music business, music therapy, sound recording, and graduate positions. In addition to explaining their own roles and professions, the panel of experts had many useful employability tips to pass on to the students.

Speakers represented organizations including the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Barbican, The Latymer School, ForeSound School of Music and the Performing Arts, Mazars LLP, and the Incorporated Society of Musicians. Several were recent graduates of the City BMus programme who were now in key positions within their profession.

Some 50 current students were in attendance. Many have now made important new contacts and some have even secured placement opportunities as a direct result of the event.

New volume on ‘Christian Congregational Music’ features former and current City PhD students

Soon to be published by Ashgate ‘Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience’, is co-edited by former PhD student Carolyn Landau. The volume explores the role of congregational music in Christian religious experience, examining how musicians and worshippers perform, identify with and experience belief through musical praxis. It features a chapter by current City doctoral student Mark Porter entitled ‘Moving between musical worlds: worship music, significance and ethics in the lives of contemporary worshippers.’ The volume is due to be published in July.

Further details can be found at ashgate.com.

 

Dionysios Kyropoulos: Recent news

City Music graduate Dionysios Kyropoulos has been awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians Prize for his outstanding undergraduate final-year Major Project entitled ‘Rhetoric, Affekt and Gesture in Handelian Opera: Towards a holistic approach to historically informed performance’.

After his recent graduation, Dionysios performed the role of Uberto in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona in Stuttgart, Germany, followed by the roles of Masetto and Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Thames Philharmonia conducted by Byung-Yun Yu. He created the role of the Whale in Danyal Dhondy’s new opera Just So, premiered at the 2012 Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival, and he also participated in the British Youth Opera production of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in which he sang in the chorus and understudied the role of Mícha.

Dionysios, who graduated with a first-class BMus(Hons) degree, frequently gives talks about historical stagecraft at the Handel House Museum. This academic year he is back at City University London as the tutor of the City Opera Ensemble, where he offers undergraduate music students theoretical and practical training in operatic performance in his capacity as music and stage director. He is using this opportunity to experiment with period stagecraft and further develop his academic research. Next year he will be studying for the MPhil in Music Studies at the University of Cambridge.

He has continued his association with the Historical Performance Department at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and recently sung the role of Father Time in The Masque of Time, devised by Andrew Lawrence-King and directed by Victoria Newlyn. A revival of this production is scheduled for 26 March in St Stephen Walbrook. Dionysios is currently preparing to sing in Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri, Handel’s Atalanta with Cambridge Handel Opera and Holst’s Wandering Scholar with Opéra les Fauves.

For Dionysios’s biography, news and upcoming concerts, please visit his website www.kyropoulos.com.

Centre staff and recent graduate featured in Independent article on music degrees and associated career opportunities

An article published today (22 November) in the Creative Arts supplement of The Independent newspaper features quotations from the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dr Christopher Wiley as well as a profile of recent City BMus graduate, Dionysios Kyropoulos.

In the article ‘Notes on working in music’, by journalist David Crookes, Dionysios explains how his passion for classical singing and opera led him to the UK (from Greece) and to City University London, in order to benefit from solid academic foundations for his studies in tandem with high-quality singing training.

While at City, Dionysios recounts, he discovered his passion for research: ‘The discovery of the impact that academic work can have on performance, and, vice versa, how practical research through performance can assist its academic counterpart absolutely fascinates me. The course helped me make this discovery.’ 

Dr Chris Wiley tops a list of UK academics quoted in the article, who between them explain that a music degree can open up a wealth of career opportunities for the aspiring student. Chris notes that ‘There certainly is more to being a successful musician than simply playing an instrument’, before outlining some of the many career-enhancing benefits of studying music at university.

Click here to read the full article

Centre for Music Studies Concert, Tuesday 13th November: Clare Hammond

Clare Hammond, a recent graduate from the Doctorate of Musical Arts programme at City University London, will give a recital in the Performance Space at 7pm on Tuesday 13 November as part of the music department’s evening concert series. Her programme will include works by Handel, Szymanowski, Beethoven and Scriabin.

Acclaimed by The Daily Telegraph as a pianist of “amazing power and panache”, Clare Hammond has performed across Europe, Russia and Canada and has appeared recently at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls in London and the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Her Purcell Room debut for the Park Lane Group concert series was praised by The Guardian for its “crisp precision and unflashy intelligence”.

More information is available online at Clare’s website: http://www.clarehammond.com/concerts.html.

BMus alumnus performs at the Olympics

Edward BellBMus alumnus and singer-songwriter Edward Bell performed at the Olympic Park, Stratford, on Saturday 4 August 2012.

Edward performed on the Emerging Icons stage on the day predicted to be the busiest of the Games, with an estimated 750,000 people in and around the Park.

His debut single, Where We’ve Been, was released on 26 July, and is available for purchase from iTunes. His album is scheduled for release in mid-September 2012.

Further information about this news story is available on the BBC News website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-18831607

BMus graduand Alexandra George awarded major scholarship from Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation

Alexandra GeorgeClass of 2012 BMus graduand Alexandra George has been awarded a major scholarship from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation to fund her graduate studies at the London School of Musical Theatre.

Staving off fierce competition, Alex underwent a rigorous audition procedure that included a callback with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s celebrated casting director David Grindrod.

The London School of Musical Theatre is an elite institution that nurtures exceptional talent through intensive training with industry practitioners, offering them a unique path into the musical theatre profession.

While at City, Alex benefitted from solo performance tuition with a professor from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and wrote her final-year dissertation on the current status of West End musical theatre under the supervision of Dr Christopher Wiley.

Aki Pasoulas appointed Lecturer in Sonic Arts at the University of Kent

Dr Aki Pasoulas, a former PhD student and Visiting Lecturer at the Centre for Music Studies, has been appointed Lecturer in Sonic Arts at the University of Kent. Aki will be developing the BMus, BSc and MA programmes with Prof Tim Howle and City alumnus Dr Paul Fretwell, and he is looking forward to expanding on his research on timescales in electroacoustic music.
He is currently a board member of the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community, and between 2004 and present he taught at universities in London including City, Middlesex and the University of the Arts. Aki’s PhD compositions are continuously performed across the world. His early acousmatic piece Chronos was selected for this year’s International Computer Music Conference to be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Adam Stansbie appointed Lecturer at the University of Sheffield

Centre for Music Studies’ PhD candidate Adam Stansbie has been appointed Lecturer in Music Technology at the University of Sheffield. Adam will be teaching electroacoustic and acousmatic composition alongside Dr. Adrian Moore, and will continue to develop his research on the creation and presentation of acousmatic music.

Adam’s appointment coincides with various high-profile performances of his musical works. His electroacoustic work Escapade was selected to represent Great Britain at the International Society for Contemporary Music World Music Days 2012, while his work Fractions was selected for the International Computer Music Conference 2012.