I am Professor of Ethnomusicology here in the Department of Music. Originally from North Wales, I taught at Bangor University before moving to Manchester in 2005. My academic background combines music, social anthropology, and modern and medieval languages. I hold degrees from the University of Oxford (BA Hons, MA) and the University of Wales (PhD), and am also an honorary doctor of Tbilisi State Conservatoire (Georgia).

My research and teaching fall mainly under the umbrella of ethnomusicology (the study of global music cultures from a combined musicological and anthropological perspective), while also drawing on approaches from cultural studies, performance studies, heritage studies, and community music therapy. My teaching is informed by my own first-hand research into present-day music cultures in Corsica, Georgia, West Africa, the UK and elsewhere, alongside my active involvement in international scholarly and professional networks.

My first fieldwork site was the Mediterranean island of Corsica, the focus of my PhD. My book Transported by Song: Corsican Voices from Oral Tradition to World Stage (Scarecrow Press, 2007) was awarded 5 stars by Songlines magazine, as well as being positively reviewed in the academic press. My next two books were published by Oxford University Press: A Different Voice, A Different Song: Reclaiming Community through the Natural Voice and World Song (2014) and The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival (2014), the latter co-edited with Juniper Hill. My current research focuses on traditional music and dance, the politics of heritage and musical tourism in post-Soviet Georgia. This work will culminate in a new monograph, Performing Georgia: National Folklore, Polyphonic Masterpieces and Intercultural Musicking in the Caucasus. I am also engaged in projects related to music, health and wellbeing in collaboration with Manchester Camerata and researchers in the School of Health Sciences.

• Traditional music of Corsica
• Traditional music of Georgia (Caucasus)
• Vocal polyphony in oral traditions
• Music revivals
• Community choirs
• Singing and activism
• Music and wellbeing
• Cultural tourism
• Cultural policy and heritage management
• Politics and aesthetics of world music
• Fieldwork methodology and ethics

Spotlights on recent work

My monograph A Different Voice, A Different Song: Reclaiming Community through the Natural Voice and World Song (2014) explores the history and significance of the natural voice movement and reveals how and why songs from the world’s oral traditions inform the movement's ideological, methodological and ethical principles while contributing in often unexpected ways to the rewards reported by participants. I show how the natural voice movement has become a key player in the democratisation of singing, representing a powerful force for building community and promoting intercultural understanding.

The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival (2014) grew out of my long-standing fascination with questions of cultural revival and transformation. The volume presents new theoretical perspectives on processes of revival, illustrated through a selection of ethnographic case studies of music and dance cultures from around the world by thirty contributing authors. Together, these reveal the potency of acts of revival, resurgence, restoration and renewal in shaping musical landscapes and transforming social experience.

My new monograph (in process) is an investigation into the musical heritage of Georgia (Caucasus), with particular reference to its polyphonic singing traditions, proclaimed by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (2001). I examine the complex intersections between forms of national folklore assumed to have their roots in an ancient past, musical transformations and modes of cultural production that emerged in the Soviet period, the post-Soviet renaissance of traditional musical practices in Georgia itself, and the ever-growing number of amateur singers from across Europe, North America and Australia who have formed Georgian choirs in their own countries and regularly travel to Georgian villages to study with local song-masters. Chapters relating to my Georgian research to date have appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival (2014), Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives (2019), Historical Trends in Georgian Traditional and Sacred Music (2023), and Georgian Traditional Polyphony: Modern Trends and Development Perspectives (2023). This research has been generously supported by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.

A recent side-project was an investigation of points of contact between the fields of ethnomusicology and early music, prompted by an invitation to act as keynote speaker for a conference on new directions in early music. This led to my chapter ‘Early Music: Views from Ethnomusicology’ in Early Music in the 21st Century (2024).

I am also part of a multidisciplinary research team investigating the impacts of Manchester Camerata’s Music in Mind programme, which supports people living with dementia through improvised music-making.

Undergraduate teaching

• Music and its Contexts
• Advanced Study in Ethnomusicology: Traditional Music in Georgia
• Dissertation

Postgraduate teaching (Master's)

• Advanced Music Studies: Issues and Approaches
• Ethno/Musicology in Action: Fieldwork and Ethnography
• Dissertation

Postgraduate research

PhD supervision: ethnomusicology

• BA and MA: University of Oxford
• PhD: University of Wales
• Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education: University of Wales

• Member of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE), Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD), Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) and Natural Voice Network (NVN)
• Member of the board of trustees for NEW Sinfonia 
• Member of the advisory board for Cantos Cautivos