Ian Dickson has released a superb video—the first in a series—on Bach chorales. Ian is our pastiche composition czar; there’s no one better to turn to for help in your exams or simply to better understand "old school counterpoint," as he puts it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTB14pE1NJ4

Enormous thanks to John Snijders for his wonderful performance of Catalan music last week as part of this term's Musicon series. It has been wonderful to see such full concert halls for this term's performances: book ahead for this month's concerts to avoid disappointment!

We are so lucky to the renowned @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social visiting Durham on November 25th. They will premiere a major work by Durham’s very own James Weeks. weatherworld explores our sensory and bodily experience of the outdoors, weaving rain, wind, open strings, and unpitched noise together.

Tickets are still available for tomorrow’s piano recital by John Snijders! His selection of music from Catalonia includes Mompou’s early set of magical chants with one of his very few larger pieces, an amazing transformation of a Chopin Prélude, and Granados’s haunting depictions of Francisco Goya.

In one month, DreaMR return to Musicon with their new ‘mixed reality’ works. DreaMR (Dreaming with Mixed Reality) will project real-time visuals from Meta Quest 3 on screen in a simultaneous performance with piano and violin, including music by Prokofiev, Butterworth & @svetlanarudenko.bsky.social.

Next week Musicon presents an evening of lyrical intimacy, full of infinite refinement, brought to you by two major composers to come out of Catalonia. John Snijders performs Mompou, one the true originals of the 20th century piano repertoire, and Granados’s rarely heard cycle ‘Romantic Scenes’.

Join us tomorrow for the first of the Royal Northern Sinfonia’s Musicon concerts this season! They will be performing dramatic chamber music by three Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. Book now or buy tickets on the door at Elvet Methodist Church.

On Friday, local chamber music champions, the @Royal_Northern_Sinfonia, join us to perform three Russian chamber classics: Tchaikovsky’s sun-drenched Souvenir de Florence, Shostakovich’s wrenching Eighth Quartet, and Prokofiev’s colourful Quintet in G minor. Tickets start at £2.

It was a pleasure to welcome our new students to Durham in our induction week last leek! This week, we look forward to the beginning of lecture and an exciting concert from the Royal Northern Sinfonia on Friday.

Congratulations to Dr Sara Salloum who has been awarded the RMA Practice Research Prize for 2025! The panel found her thesis ‘Female lute accomplishment and performance practices in early seventeenth-century England’ rich and insightful, singling out its analysis of how clothing shaped performance.

Join us on 22nd October for John Snijder’s Iberian Nights, an evening of piano music from Catalonia. It includes the rarely heard but much-admired works of Frederic Mompou, a composer whose works recall those of his friend, Erik Satie, and Enrique Granados’s meditations on Goya.

On 10th October, we launch our new, multi-season partnership with the North East’s world-class chamber orchestra with an evening rich emotions and vivid contrasts in bold, theatrical chamber music by three of Russia’s greatest composers: Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich.

Musicon kicks off Michaelmas term on 10th October with the first of 3 appearances by the Royal Northern Sinfonia, then, hot on their heels, pianist Richard Rijnvos’s Iberian Nights. November includes Svetlana Rudenko’s Mixed Reality work, and James Weeks’s collaboration with the Bozzini Quartet.

Musion’s 25-26 season is here! Featuring three concerts by the Royal Northern Sinfonia and visits from the Bozzini Quartet and Musica Antica Rotherhithe. Durham stalwarts underpin the series, including performers Kelly Jakubowski and John Snijders, and composers James Weeks and Richard Rijnvos.

This month sees release of a new recording of chamber music by Durham Music and St Mary’s College alumna Ailsa Dixon (1932–2017). Hear the ‘lost’ Scherzo, written while a student in 1955 and recently rediscovered: bit.ly/4oyU1BV. Read more about the composer’s revival: https://bit.ly/478wcuv

Congratulations to Dr Zak Eastop on the successful defence of his doctoral thesis “Hybridity, Hierarchy, and Couleur Rabelaisienne”! He’s celebrating here with supervisors Professor Richard Scholar and Professor Kathryn Banks (Modern Languages and Cultures) and Dr Katherine Hambridge (Music).

🎉 Dr Ian Dickson won the Innovation in Teaching and Learning award and PhD candidate Ardi Echevarria won the Early Career Educator award, for which PhD candidate Chris Massa and Dr Amanda Hsieh were also shortlisted. Dr Sam Horlor was shortlisted for the Impactful Contribution to EDI award.

Congrats to Thea Constantinou, winner of our £100 undergraduate EDI Prize, for her essay on Beyoncé’s Renaissance, and to Dana Al Tajer and Christopher Butler-Cole, who were awarded commendations. The panel complimented Thea's analysis of intersecting race, gender, and sexuality identities.

Supported by a Durham-Tübingen Seedcorn Grant, Dr Amanda Hsieh (PI) and Dr Friedemann Pestel (Co-I) hosted a small but highly productive workshop on cultural institutions, spectacle, and global fascism in the 1930s, 40s, and beyond in Tübingen earlier in June.

🎉 Exciting news!  The Faculty of Arts and Humanities has received an Athena Swan Silver Award 2025 – one of only two UK Arts & Humanities faculties to do so!  ✅ Advancing gender equality  ✅ Improving career development  ✅ Strengthening leadership opportunities  @DurhamUniversity #DUInspire

Join St John’s College Chapel Choir to commemorate Orlando Gibbons on the 400th anniversary of his death with a special Come and Sing event. Book your free ticket for this unique celebration. 📅 Workshop, 4 Jun 7-9pm. Commemoration, 5 Jun 7-9pm. 🎟️ https://bit.ly/4k9a5HR 📍St John’s College Chapel

We are delighted to appoint Amelia Awan and Harriet Nevin as Decolonising the Curriculum Interns for 2025. They will present their project, which aims to identify and address influences of coloniality in our curriculum, at the Decolonising the Curriculum Conference on 12 June: https://bit.ly/4j6szaE

Congrats to PhD candidate ZHOU Mo for her 2025 Fieldwork Award from the British Forum for Ethnomusicology @bfeadmin. The award supports her work exploring contemporary musical developments among the Wa ethnic group in China’s Yunnan Province. http://bit.ly/3S90p3O

Indian Spring Colours: Vignesh Ishwar This weekend, experience the soul-stirring vocals of Vignesh Ishwar, one of Carnatic music’s most compelling contemporary voices. Joined by Sayee Rakshith (violin) and Sumesh Narayanan (mridangam). 📅 Sun 11 May, 2pm | Palace Green 🎟️ https://shorturl.at/pYXrm

Indian Spring Colours: Parampara – The Legacy of Bhimsen Joshi Representatives of the Kirana gharana musical lineage share the stage in this special morning concert honouring the legacy of legendary maestro Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. 📅 Sun 11 May, 11am | Palace Green 🎟️ https://shorturl.at/Z40qh

Congratulations to Ardi Echevarría, third-year PhD student studying with Professor Julian Horton and Dr Katherine Hambridge, whose paper on Mendelssohn’s development themes won a prize for best student paper at the Society for Music Analysis conference. https://www.sma.ac.uk/sma-awards/#tagsaward

As part of this weekend’s MUSICON–GemArts series, the acclaimed performers, Debasmita Bhattacharya (sarod) and Gurdain Rayatt (tabla) present an evening of Hindustani classical music. Please do join us! 📅 Sat 10 May, 7pm | Palace Green 🎟️ https://shorturl.at/duuU9

Congratulations to Dr Angus Howie, whose thesis Symphonic Legacies: Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler in Vienna, 1911–1945 passed with flying colours, examined by Prof. Benjamin M. Korstvedt and Dr Amanda Hsieh (left). He was supervised by Professor Julian Horton and Dr Katherine Hambridge (right).

🌸 Indian Spring Colours – This Weekend at Durham Join GemArts and Musicon at Durham University for Indian Spring Colours, a series of concerts showcasing the best of Hindustani and Carnatic classical music. 📅 10–11 May | Palace Green 🎟️ Via Gem Arts: https://bit.ly/4jGIy02

On Good Friday, Durham’s Dr Katherine Hambridge appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, outlining the history of the exclusion of women and girls from church music as part of a segment on the admission of girls to St Paul’s Cathedral Choir. Listen here, from 12:15: https://bbc.in/3RSfTZP

@jamesweeks.bsky.social's media vita is out on Another Timbre, performed by @apartment-house.bsky.social! This chamber work is interweaved with his idiosyncratic arrangements of Nicolas Gombert. “One of the least expected & most beautiful records we are likely to hear all year" – Clive Bell

Some belated photos of the wonderful Musicon concert by @fretwork.bsky.social and Alexander Chance last week. The 400th anniversary of Orlando Gibbon's death was marked by performances of his music alongside Nico Muhly's touching and surprising depiction of the events around his death.

Last weekend, hosted Plus Minus and Riot Ensemble for Musicon's New Music Weekend, with ace music by Michael Finnissy, Cassandra Miller, and Laurence Crane, and more. Nicola LeFanu introduced David Lumsdaine's stunning Big Meeting, and David de la Haye's hydrophones captured the sounds of the Wear.

Free concert for International Women’s Day: Pop, Rock & Jazz Showcase. Outstanding student bands highlighting women’s songwriting and performance. 📅 Friday 7 March 2025, 6:45pm 📍 Concert Room, Music Dept, Palace Green, DH1 3RL 🎟 Free entry, no tickets needed Info: [email protected]