King’s College London Announces Exciting New Season for King’s Music Colloquium 23/24

The Department of Music runs a friendly, weekly colloquium series, representing a broad field of contemporary research in composition, musicology, ethnomusicology and sound studies. Starting the new academic year with a series of events featuring renowned names from the world of music studies, for the whole King’s community to enjoy.

Colloquium Series
Upcoming talks include: Professor Sir George Benjamin (27 September), Professor Noel Lobley (4 October), Arnab Chakrabarty (4 October), Professor Nomi Dave (18 October) and Dr Marco Ladd (25 October) – who will be exploring a range of topics, including how colonial sound fragments are transformed, the Impact of technological change on the sarod sound of Shahjahanpur Gharana musicians and the different ways of listening as well as vocal techniques within legal proceedings in Guinea.

We will also be hearing from King’s Dr Marco Ladd; who will be discussing his current research on Italian operetta after the advent of fascism and Professor Sir George Bejamin, who will talk about his recent opera which will be performed on various occasions at the Royal Opera House.

I’m really looking forward to hearing from music scholars from across London – King’s, Courtauld and UCL – North America and India, speaking about Britain, Italy, Guinea, South Africa, and Lucknow, and no doubt many other places. One of the things I’m most looking forward to are the big questions being tackled by our speakers, which push at edges of of music and sound studies and are leading conversations about fascism, decolonisation, musical curation and gender justice. To kick things off (on 27 September) we have Professor Sir George Benjamin talking about his latest opera, Picture a Day Like This, which recently premiered just across the road at the Lindbury Theatre in Covent Garden. You can go and hear it until early October, and you really should! I can’t wait to hear what George has to say about what it’s like composing in this hallowed tradition in the twenty-first century.


This series has been organised by Dr Gavin Williams and Dr Sophie Redfern.