Professor Matthew Head

Matthew Head was schooled in the State sector in south-west Cornwall in the days before OFSTED. A boy treble, he fell for the flute when his voice broke. He studied music at Oxford (1985-88) and Yale (1988-95). After postgraduate studies in music theory and history in the States, he returned to the UK with with a Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship at the University of Southampton where he subsequently worked as a lecturer. He came to King's in 2007 and became a Reader in 2008, and a Professor in 2014.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Enlightenment subjectivity
• Keyboard music and song

Matthew studies the music of the German-speaking eighteenth-century. His work to date focuses on marginal and problematic repertories, or repertories that can appear as such: the fantastic style in C. P. E. Bach; exoticism and orientalism in Mozart and Haydn; female composers and the discourse of femininity. He is currently exploring the rise of subjectivity in keyboard culture, with a particular focus on expressive practices of terror, melancholy, love, desire and humour in Haydn, Mozart and C. P. E. Bach.

Matthew welcomes applications for PhD topics related to any of his research interests. For more details, please see his full research profile.

Teaching

Matthew enjoys teaching topics in the cultural history of music in the long eighteenth century, cultural theory, and harmony and counterpoint. He particularly likes to challenge, provoke and stimulate students, through a combination of formal lecturing, discussion and in-class activities.