Dr Owen Burton
Associate Lecturer

Profile

Biography

After studying at Bangor University, Owen Burton came to York in 2016 to study for his PhD, supervised by Professor Tim Howell. Having graduated with his doctorate in 2021, Owen now teaches in the areas of Musicology, Music Analysis and Music Education. His teaching covers critical musicology, music and the environment, Nordic music, nineteenth-century genres, analysis, and music pedagogy. 

Owen’s PhD thesis on the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara ‘Upholding a Modernist Mentality: Experimentalism and Neotonality in the Symphonies of Einojuhani Rautavaara’ was the first analytical investigation into this composer’s full symphonic cycle. His research on Rautavaara has been published in the journal Twentieth Century Music and he is also preparing a monograph on Rautavaara’s symphonies, for which he was supported by a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship through the Humanities Research Centre at York in 2021.

Owen’s wider projects have included conducting the Bangor University Community Orchestra, writing performance notes for the Trinity College piano syllabus, and programme notes for the Lake District Summer Music Festival, Ensemble Cymru, and York Concerts. He also leads conducting and songwriting workshops in primary schools and has given public lectures on ‘Music and Nature’ as part of the Leeds International Piano Competition. He is an active piano, guitar and music theory teacher.