Archive for the Writing Category

‘Hearken to the Hermit Thrush’

On February 22, 2021 / Birdsong, Research, Writing, Zoomusicology / Leave a comment

I’m pleased to share my most recent zoomusicology article, “‘Hearken to the Hermit Thrush: A Case Study in Interdisciplinary Listening,” which was published as part of the special research topic “Songs and Signs: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cultural Transmission and Inheritance in Human and Nonhuman Animals” in Frontiers in Psychology. In this article I discuss my own approach to zoomusicological inquiry, and use the example of how the hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) has been understood and discussed over the past 200 years to illustrate why interdisciplinary perspectives are essential for better understanding of animal songs. The full text is available for free here.

Why Yes, I Do Want My Music Performed…

On July 24, 2019 / General Musings, Women, Writing / Leave a comment

I’m pleased to share my most recent article for New Music Box, on why “but surely you don’t want your music performed just because you’re a woman, surely you want it performed because it’s good” is not the devastating critique that those who resist gender balanced programming think it is!

Diversity Within Progressive Musicology Roundtable

On March 7, 2018 / Conferences, Research, Writing / Leave a comment

In January I was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on Diversity within progressive musicology at the Critical Theory for Musicology conference at University of London. I’m not a musicologist by training, and really enjoyed spending the weekend listening to and talking with all the musicologists striving to build bridges between the worlds of “new musicology” and “traditional musicology.” Here is my contribution, written up in blog form on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Exchange Thoughts Blog.

Composing and motherhood

On April 26, 2017 / Writing / Leave a comment

My article about being a composer and a mother was just published. Thank you New Music Box for providing a forum where we can discuss this important topic.

Composing and Entrpreneurship

On August 10, 2016 / Writing / Leave a comment

In the 25 (!) years that I’ve been a composer, I’ve noticed a transformation from a general feeling that being a composer (or any kind of artist) was the opposite of being a business person to the expectation that all composers should be entrepreneurs, and not only that, we’re supposed to like that. I had the chance to write about this for VAN Magazine, in my article Performing Creativity: Composing in the Entrepreneurial Age.

(The Lovely and) Talented?

On April 15, 2016 / Writing / Leave a comment

I’m thrilled to have a guest post on Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog about how the word “talented” is disproportionately used to describe composers who are women. Click here to read the post.