Tomorrow at 7pm in the Birley Room, for John Snijders’s (free!) introduction to Matthijs Vermeulen – a composer whose innovative handling of melody, harmony, and instrumentation makes him a true original. Two symphonies brimming with sheer musical power.

Our apologies for incorrect post published earlier today: the Verdi come-and-sing event is cancelled, but a pre-scheduled post slipped through the net! Sorry for any confusion caused.

What’s in your head while you listen to music? Share your thoughts as you listen to music during a 40-minute survey we are running @durhammusicdept.bsky.social from the 18-20th February. Sign up at www.signupgenius.com/go/10C044EA5... to book your preferred time slot. #MusicScience

On 2nd March, @joebates.bsky.social introduces Wendy Carlos – a legendary synthesiser composer who has resisted all efforts to digitise her music. With her CDs out of production, this is a rare chance to hear her ground-breaking album Beauty In The Beast.

Join us next Monday when John Snijders, pictured here at his Muiscon concert last term, presents two symphonies by Matthijs Vermeulen. The Second (1920) is a non-conformist's response to the avant-garde; the Fourth (1941), written under occupation, is full of hope that victory will come.

On 17th February, @musicaantica.bsky.social bring the Golden Age of Venetian opera to Durham – cantatas and opera extracts from the mid-seventeenth century, much of it unperformed for over 350 years, with an ensemble recreating a Venetian theatre band.

Tomorrow at 7.30pm, harpsichordist Jane Chapman gives the UK premiere of Richard Rijnvos's lettura del labirinto. Fifty-five miniatures trace a path through Venice where no location is visited twice – a parallel universe to Calvino's Invisible Cities.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the first MUSICONversation last night! Julian Horton's time-travelling symphony prompted a wonderful discussion. The series continues on 9th February when John Snijders introduces the music of Matthijs Vermeulen.

On 9th February, John Snijders introduces Matthijs Vermeulen – one of the most neglected but original voices in twentieth-century music. His astoundingly energetic symphonies point forward to sounds and textures we don't hear until decades later.

Congratulations to Dr James Weeks for last night’s delicate, ear-opening concert with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Ben Smith, including a stunning new work by former Durham student Elisabet Dijkstra.

Tomorrow at 7pm in the Birley Room is the first of our free MUSICONversations. Julian Horton presents a symphony he composed in an authentic 1850s idiom. How would you write a symphony if you could time-travel to 1856? Come and find out.

Join us on Friday when Royal Northern Sinfonia return, directed by violinist Maria Włoszczowska. Haydn's 'Joke' Quartet, Hasenöhrl's brilliant reduction of Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, and Beethoven's Septet – an instant hit at its 1800 premiere. Last term’s concert was packed out, so book ahead!

On 7th February we host a Come and Sing workshop marking 125 years since Verdi's death. Led by Katherine Hambridge, singers of all ages are welcome to come and tackle thrilling music, including the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, the Triumphal Scene from Aida, the Brindisi, and more.

On Friday 23rd, Royal Northern Sinfonia return for an evening packed with wit, sparkle, and passion. Haydn's genial 'Joke' Quartet, a trickster from German folklore in Hasenöhrl's chamber Till Eulenspiegel, and Beethoven's ever-delightful Septet.

Join us next Wednesday for the UK premiere of Richard Rijnvos's lettura del labirinto. Harpsichordist Jane Chapman performs 55 miniatures, each set against contemplative footage of Venice – a meditation on getting lost in a labyrinth of alleys, bridges, and little squares.

Join us next Monday for the first MUSICONversation. Julian Horton introduces a symphony of his own, composed in an authentic mid-nineteenth-century style – the fruit of a decade researching thousands of symphonies for Cambridge University Press.

This term we launch MUSICONversations, a new series of music appreciation evenings. Members of Durham's Music Department introduce music they love, with a short introduction, a recording, and time for reflection and conversation. We begin next Monday with a presentation by Prof. Julian Horton!

Join us this term for a plethora of Musicon events: concerts from the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Musica Antica Rotherhithe, Richard Rijnvos’s new work for harpsichord and film, Come And Sing Workshops, work inspired by early translations of Japanese literature, and our new ‘MUSICONversations’!

Our department's Dr Amanda Hsieh has published an edited volume with Dr Vera Wolkowicz (of @uofglasgowmusic.bsky.social ). This book, Global Musicology: Music Histories from 'Elsewhere'​ is a brave attempt at doing musicology as musicologists across the world. Congratulations, Amanda and Vera!

We are delighted to share news of Prof Julian Horton's new article with Peter H. Smith in Music Theory Spectrum, examining first-movement practices across 138 violin concertos from Viotti to Elgar. A book from this Durham-Notre Dame collaboration is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

On Tuesday at Musicon, the legendary @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social premiered James Weeks's weatherworld cycle to a full house. Within this subtle, textured landscape of slowly evolving weather sounds, this coup-de-theatre: the quartet performing with specially prepared leaves.

Last week, Musicon saw a stunning performance of @hauntedplanet.com's reality art. @svetlanarudenko.bsky.social performed her music alongside Prokofiev and Butterworth's, with @kellyjakubowski.bsky.social playing violin and @madshaahr.bsky.social demonstrating dreamlike graphics from an MR headset.

Dr James Weeks rehearsing with the @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social in advance of today's exciting Musicon concert! Tickets are available on the door, at 7.30 in the music department.

Don’t miss tomorrow’s Musicon: the @quatuorbozzini.bsky.social performing a new cycle of string quartets by James Weeks. In two quartets the bow is replaced by plant materials – fern fronds and cypress sprigs – heightening the exploration of an intimate, immersed way of being in the natural world.

Tomorrow, DreaMR bring their mixed-reality concert to Durham’s Musicon series. Through a high-tech headset, projected visuals, and music by Prokofiev, Butterworth and Rudenko, this concert imagines dreams as surrealist paintings: experiences that reside halfway between the visible and the invisible.

Next week, 19th November, we host a fascinating concert, from DreaMR, who bring together piano, violin, and a ‘Mixed Reality’ headset. It features two sets, ‘The Persistence of Memory & Alice Dali 2 MR’ and ‘Psychogeography with E. Ravilious AR’, which engage with the human experience of dreaming.

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