Daniel Leech-Wilkinson
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Contact DetailsEmail: daniel.leech-wilkinson@kcl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 207 848 2576
Biography
Selected recent publications
Research students
Biography
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson studied composition, harpsichord and organ at the Royal College of Music, then took the MMus at King's specialising in 15th-century music. Following doctoral research at Cambridge, working on 14th-century techniques of composition, he became a Fellow of Churchill College. He taught at Nottingham and Southampton universities before rejoining the Music Department at King's College in September 1997.
Until 2002 his main research was in fourteenth-century French music, though he has also published on performance practice and Renaissance topics, and his analytical interests include the French Baroque and music since 1945. He published books on fourteenth-century compositional technique and on Machaut's "Messe de Nostre Dame", as well as the first complete edition of Machaut's autobiographical romance Le Voir Dit (Garland, 1998). His 2002 book, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music (Cambridge, 2002) looked at the way medieval music was reimagined through the 19th and 20th centuries, seeing it as a case study of the ideology of historical musicology.
He now works on musical communication via expressive performance, seen in the light of current work on music and the brain. His article on 'Portamento and Musical Meaning' was published in the Journal of Musicological Research in 2006. A on the study of musical performances appeared in 2009. He received funding for a five-year project on "Expressivity in Schubert Song Performance" within the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). He is also directing a large-scale digitisation project, making available 78rpm recordings from the King's Sound Archive online. He is currently working on "Performers' Perceptions of Music as Shape" within the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice.
Until 2002 his main research was in fourteenth-century French music, though he has also published on performance practice and Renaissance topics, and his analytical interests include the French Baroque and music since 1945. He published books on fourteenth-century compositional technique and on Machaut's "Messe de Nostre Dame", as well as the first complete edition of Machaut's autobiographical romance Le Voir Dit (Garland, 1998). His 2002 book, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music (Cambridge, 2002) looked at the way medieval music was reimagined through the 19th and 20th centuries, seeing it as a case study of the ideology of historical musicology.
He now works on musical communication via expressive performance, seen in the light of current work on music and the brain. His article on 'Portamento and Musical Meaning' was published in the Journal of Musicological Research in 2006. A on the study of musical performances appeared in 2009. He received funding for a five-year project on "Expressivity in Schubert Song Performance" within the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). He is also directing a large-scale digitisation project, making available 78rpm recordings from the King's Sound Archive online. He is currently working on "Performers' Perceptions of Music as Shape" within the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice.
Recent publications
The Modern Invention of Medieval Music (Cambridge University Press, 2002; paperback, 2007). Royal Philharmonic Society Book Award 2002
'Portamento and musical meaning', Journal of Musicological Research 25 (2006) 233-61
'Expressive gestures in Schubert singing on record', Nordisk Estetisk Tidskrift 33-34 (2006) 50-70
'Sound and meaning in recordings of Schubert's "Die junge Nonne"', Musicae Scientiae 11 (2007), 209-36
The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to studying recorded musical performances (London: CHARM, 2009)
Complete list of Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's publications
'Portamento and musical meaning', Journal of Musicological Research 25 (2006) 233-61
'Expressive gestures in Schubert singing on record', Nordisk Estetisk Tidskrift 33-34 (2006) 50-70
'Sound and meaning in recordings of Schubert's "Die junge Nonne"', Musicae Scientiae 11 (2007), 209-36
The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to studying recorded musical performances (London: CHARM, 2009)
Complete list of Daniel Leech-Wilkinson's publications
Research students
- Amy Blier-Carruthers: Sir Charles Mackerras: Private Recordings – Public Performance (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award)
- Edward Breen: The performance practice of David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London
- YuanPu Chiao: The Changing Style of Performing Rachmaninoff's Piano Music (Edison Fellowship 2008; King's College Overseas Research Students Award and Humanities Research Studentship)
- Abigail Dolan: Flute performance traditions on record (Edison Fellowship 2006; AVI Award)
- Miriam Quick: Modernity on Record: The String Quartets and String Trio of Anton Webern (AHRC Award)
Recently completed:
- Catherine Lloyd: From ars antiqua to ars nova (AHRB Award)
- Hannah Vlcek: Musica ficta in Machaut
- Edward Wickham: The four-voice Mass 1440-1480: Scoring and ensemble
- David Knight: The Organs of Westminster Abbey and their Music
- Gwendolyn Tietze: Writing the Middle Ages: Medieval music in the 1920s (AHRB Award and School of Humanities Research Studentship)