Dr Emily Payne

Profile

I am an Associate Professor of Music. I joined the School of Music in as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the AHRC-funded project, ‘John Cage and Concert for Piano and Orchestra’, led by Philip Thomas (Huddersfield) and Martin Iddon (Leeds).  

I undertook my PhD at the University of Oxford, employing an ethnographic approach to examine the creative processes of clarinet performance. I hold a BMus in clarinet performance from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and an MMus in Advanced Musical Studies (Performance Studies) from Royal Holloway, University of London.

My work is published in journals including CIRCUIT, Contemporary Music Review, cultural geographies, Music & Letters, Music + Practice, and Musicae Scientiae. I am co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Time in Music (OUP, 2021), and Material Cultures of Music Notation: New Perspectives on Musical Inscription (Routledge, 2022). In 2019–22 I held the role of Assistant Editor for Music & Science, and continue to be a member of the journal’s Editorial Board; I am also a Consulting Editor for Musicae Scientiae. 

Current Research Students (Co-supervisor):

• Eleanor Barnard

• Elizabeth Fair

• Jennifer Hogan

• John Monteiro

• Michael Solomon Williams

• Yani Sun

Responsibilities

• Director of Postgraduate Research Studies

Research interests

I’m interested in, broadly, researching and thinking about what goes on in musical performance. This involves understanding musicians’ experiences of performance across a range of contexts, but often in contemporary concert and experimental music. My work sits across musicology and music psychology, and combines qualitative empirical research methods with musicological enquiry, including score analysis and archival research. My previous work has examined the creative processes of musicians during collaborative work, investigated the musical and social dynamics of ensemble performance, and theorised about skill and embodiment in indeterminate music. 

My PhD employed ethnographic methods to investigate the creative processes of contemporary art music by studying collaborations between professional clarinettists and composers. The thesis was based on qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with musicians and audio-visual footage of workshops, rehearsals, and performances, alongside analyses of sketch materials and score annotations. Adopting an ecological perspective and drawing on theories of craft and distributed creativity, my research developed a new understanding of what it means to be creative when working with a score, by questioning the prevailing notion of creativity as innovation. Findings from the project have been published in Contemporary Music Review, cultural geographies, Musicae Scientiae, and Music & Letters. I am co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Time in Music (OUP, 2021), and Material Cultures of Music Notation: New Perspectives on Musical Inscription (Routledge, 2022).

I am co-editor of a Music & Science Special Collection, ‘The Role of Music Psychology Research in a Complex World’, based on contributions to the SEMPRE 2020 conference that I co-organised in the School of Music. The Collection is the first in nearly a decade to (re)consider the discipline in light of current global challenges, and to foster debate about the role that music psychology might play in addressing them.

My ongoing research develops my work on the creative processes of performance in two directions: 

Performance practices of contemporary concert and experimental music

In 2015–18 I was Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the AHRC-funded project, ‘John Cage and the Concert for Piano and Orchestra’. The project explored issues of historicity, analysis, reception, and performance in relation to the Concert. Audio-visual material from the research was published as a documentary resource on the project’s website, which provides new perspectives on performing the Concert and indeterminate music more generally. My chapter, ‘Time and ensemble dynamics in indeterminacy: John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra’, is published in The Oxfird Handbook of Time in Music. I co-edited a double issue of Contemporary Music Review, 'Performing Indeterminacy’, which presents selected papers from the project’s international conference of the same name, including my own article on instrumental interaction and subversion in the Concert.

I undertook a project with Philip Thomas (University of Huddersfield) examining ensemble dynamics in the music of Christian Wolff. Using video recordings of the sessions and interviews with musicians and the composer, our research offers a view of ensemble interaction and group dynamics that is grounded in both the momentary interactions between musicians and the cultural knowledge and conduct that are animated by Wolff’s notation. Findings from the project are published in Finding Democracy in Music (Routledge, 2020); CIRCUIT: Musiques Contemporaines, and Together in Music: Coordination, Expression, Participation (OUP, 2021). My future research plans are to build on this project by undertaking a more sustained investigation of ensemble dynamics and creative processes in the performance of contemporary music.

Understanding musicians’ experiences of performance

Exploring the performer-audience relationship

Working in collaboration with Karen Burland, my recent research examines performer perceptions of live performance and the performer-audience relationship. Performers’ strong emotional experiences frequently involve a specific audience response. Yet, despite the large body of research on audience experiences of live performance, there is limited work on the ways in which audiences influence the performer’s creative process during performance, as well as in its preparation and evaluation. We have been conducting an exploratory questionnaire and interview study with musicians of different backgrounds to understand more about how they characterise their experiences with audiences. Outline findings from our research have been presented at the 6^th Performance Studies Network Conference and the SEMPRE 50th Anniversary Conference. My future plans are to explore the performer-audience relationship from an interdisciplinary perspective with the longer-term goal of developing and expanding practice and training future practitioners.

Chills and music performance 

In a project undertaken with Scott Bannister, I have been investigating musical chills (subjective emotional experiences accompanied by goosebumps, shivers, and/or tingling sensations) while performing music. Research on chills has focused mainly on listening contexts; evidence of chills while performing music is substantially limited. We recently conducted an exploratory survey to understand more about how musicians characterise their experiences of chills when playing or performing music, and the factors that underlie their experiences. We presented some of the findings at the 12^th ESCOM conference. 

Qualifications

• DPhil Music (Oxon)
• MMus Advanced Musical Studies (London)
• BMus Performance
• FHEA
• Dip ABRSM Teaching Skills

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Royal Musical Association
• Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE)
• European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM)

Student education

I contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and assessment across a range of music, performance, and music psychology provision in the School of Music. 

Research groups and institutes

• Music, Science and Technology
• Music as Culture

Current postgraduate researchers

• Eleanor Barnard
• Yani Sun
• Elizabeth Fair

Funding

<li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/funding/385-school-of-music-opportunity-research-scholarship-2025/26">School of Music Opportunity Research Scholarship 2025/26</a></li>