Dr Richard Powell
Associate Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Richard Powell is a teacher and researcher in the areas of music education, musicology, and music analysis. He studied at the University of York as both an undergraduate and a postgraduate. His doctoral thesis Articulating Time: Listening to Musical Forms in the Twenty-First Century explored the ways in which composers across the last two centuries have engaged with issues of temporal perception through structural approaches to sound. The thesis included analytical case studies comparing and contrasting music by Hans Abrahamsen, John Adams, George Benjamin, Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho, as well as by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, and Sibelius.

Since 2016, he has taught alongside Dr Elizabeth Haddon, Dr Naomi Norton, Dr Caroline Waddington-Jones, and Dr Jenni Cohen on the MA in Music Education: Instrumental and Vocal Teaching, on the MA Musicology pathway, and has led undergraduate modules focusing on critical approaches to nineteenth-century music, and the exploration of critical musicology and its applications to listening and performance. As a researcher, he is currently exploring ways in which the use of analytical strategies might inform and enrich pedagogical approaches, and the relationship between the language used in instrumental teaching and tutor books.

Richard’s work on the music of John Adams has been published in Contemporary Music Review, and with Professor Tim Howell he has co-authored a chapter on timescale and environment in the music of Hans Abrahamsen and Kaija Saariaho for The Nature of Nordic Music (ed. Tim Howell, 2020 with Routledge), a book project for which he has also acted as assistant editor. His most recent work includes a contribution considering symphonic works by Thomas Adès and Sibelius for Thomas Adès Studies (ed. Edward Venn & Philip Stoecker, Cambridge University Press, due Autumn 2021), and an article concerning Adès’s orchestral work Dawn (2020) for TEMPO (due Autumn 2021).

In addition to working as a freelance violinist and instrumental teacher, Richard also regularly produces concert programme notes for a variety of ensembles and organisations around the UK.

Departmental roles

• GTA Co-ordinator
• Department Teaching Committee
• Graduate Board
• Acting Programme Leader, MA in Music Education: Instrumental and Vocal Teaching (January–September 2022)

Publications

Selected publications

Articles and book chapters:

• Powell, R. (2021). Closing the circle? Tevot and the question of symphonic resolution. In, eds E. Venn & P. Stoecker (eds.), Thomas Adès Studies. Cambridge University Press. (Due October 2021)
• Powell, R. (2021). ‘A new Dawn? Thomas Adès and the case of musical simplicity.’ TEMPO, 75(298), 52–62. (Due Autumn 2021)
• Howell, T. & Powell, R. (2020). ‘Telling the Time: Communication and Temporality in Nordic New Music’. In T. Howell (ed.), The Nature of Nordic Music (pp.193–218). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315462851
• Powell, R. (2014). ‘Accessible Narratives: Continuity in the Music of John Adams’. Contemporary Music Review, 33(4) (2014): 390–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2014.977028

Thesis:
• Articulating time: Listening to musical forms in the twenty-first century. University of York, PhD, 2017. Available at: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17150/

Research

Overview

• Analysis of musical form and timescale
• Approaches to music analysis within instrumental and vocal teaching
• Language of teaching
• Contemporary music
• Exploring connections between old and new music

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Module leader: Developing themes: Music in the ‘long nineteenth century’
• Critical thinking and listening
• Sessions on Music Analysis, Sibelius, and The String Quartet projects

Postgraduate

• Course tutor: MA in Music Education: Instrumental and Vocal Teaching
• Course tutor: MA in Music: Musicology pathway