Professor Bryan White

Profile

I am a member of the Purcell Society, the editorial board of the Web Library for Seventeenth-Century Music, chairperson of Leeds Baroque, and director of the Clothworkers Consort of Leeds (CCL). I studied at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas (BMus, 1991) and at the University of Wales, Bangor (MA in Performance Studies (1992)), where I received a PhD (2000) for my thesis 'Louis Grabu and his opera Albion and Albanius'. I began lecturing at Bretton Hall in 1998, and moved to the University of Leeds in 2001.

External roles

• External Examiner Masters and Undergraduate Musicology, University of Southampton (2016–2020)
• External Examiner MMus Performance, Conservatory of Music and Drama, Dublin Institute of Technology (2013–2016)­
• External Examiner MMus, University of Hull (2013–2016)
• MA by Research Examiner (York 2016, Hull 2019)
• PhD Examiner (Cork 2011, York 2012, Newcastle, Australia 2013, Bangor 2014, 2015, Huddersfield 2014, Otago, New Zealand 2015, Canterbury Christ Church 2020, Maynooth 2021)

Responsibilities

• Director of Student Education

Research interests

I am a member of the Purcell Society for which I have edited two volumes for the Companion Series. My primary research interests are in British music and culture of the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. I research the music of the English court and Chapel Royal, opera at court and in the public theatres, anthems, their texts and their political significance, music making in personal correspondence, odes (especially Cecilian odes), and celebrations of St Cecilia's Day in the British Isles, the latter of which was the subject of my monograph Music for St Cecilia’s Day from Purcell to Handel (Boydell, 2019). I am also investigating the collecting activities of W. T. Freemantle (1849–1931) and the material formerly owned by him now held in the Special Collections of the library of the University of Leeds. I curated an exhibition on this material at the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery from March to August 2019. I am an active performer as a choral director, soloist and choral singer. My work with the Clothworkers Consort of Leeds includes performances of literature relating to my research interests.

Research students

Current

(Primary Supervisor)

• Amélie Addison
• Hazel Brooks (WRoCAH funded)
• Emma Affleck

Co-Supervisor

• Elizabeth Jones
• Matthew Palfreyman
• Steven Moore

Completed research students

(Primary Supervisor)

• Christopher Roberts (Stanley Burton Trust funded)
• Mary Black

Co-Supervisor:

• Sarah Potter (Stanley Burton Trust funded)
• Jonathan Tobutt
• Miaoyin Qu
• Min-Jung Kang

Professional memberships

• Purcell Society
• Society for Seventeenth-Century Music
• Royal Musical Association

Student education

I teach in the areas of music history, notation and editing, archival studies, opera studies and choral performance.

Research groups and institutes

• Music as Culture

Current postgraduate researchers

• Elizabeth Jones
• Steven Moore