Katrina Fox

Profile

I am a postgraduate researcher in the School of Music at the University of Leeds, supervised by Professor Edward Venn and Professor Bryan White. My PhD research explores how twenty-first-century opera fosters authentic experiences, examining how operatic texts, performance practices and production choices create the conditions under which authenticity may emerge in contemporary performance.

Before beginning my doctoral studies, I worked in education, including secondary science teaching, primary music teaching, and individual tuition in piano, woodwind and music theory.

My paper Non-Functional Harmony and Tonal Allusion in Matthew Aucoin's ‘Eurydice’ was highly commended at the Society for Music Analysis Theory and Analysis Graduate Students Conference (CamTAGS) in 2026, and I subsequently presented Reconfiguring Mythic Narrative Within Matthew Aucoin's ‘Eurydice’ at the European Music Analysis Conference (EuroMAC) in 2026.

Research interests

My research explores how contemporary opera creates the conditions under which authentic experience may emerge. Drawing on theories of authenticity and narrative, alongside analyses of scores, libretti and performances, I investigate how opera encourages active engagement in processes of interpretation and meaning-making. Particular attention is given to the relationship between operatic texts and performance, and to the ways artistic choices shape interpretation and facilitate meaningful engagement with complex human experiences.

Research interests:
• Opera studies
• Contemporary opera
• Musical analysis
• Performance analysis
• Authenticity
• Hermeneutics
• Myth and music

Qualifications

• LMusTCL Music Theory
• DipABRSM Piano Teaching
• MA(Ed) Science Education
• PGCE Secondary Science Teaching
• BSc (Hons) Microbiology and Virology