I have recently finished my first book, The Art of Appreciation: Music and Middlebrow Culture in Modern Britain, which explores why and how “music appreciation” came to have such a pervasive presence in twentieth-century musical life. Examining a wide range of initiatives to promote classical music to a broader audience – from children’s concerts to university outreach programs – it reveals how the act of listening became embroiled in a nexus of modern problems around citizenship, leisure and education.

This book grew out of research conducted during a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Titled "Democratizing Art: Music, Leisure and Education in Interwar Britain," I began my post-doctoral project prior to joining Bristol at the University of Southampton. 

My interests in music and war date from my post-graduate years: my PhD, which I completed at King's College London, investigated musical culture in World War Two Britain; and my MPhil thesis, which I wrote while studying at the University of Cambridge, concerned emigre composer Arthur Willner, specifically exploring how his flight from Nazi-occupied Austria impacted his music.