Wayne Weaver is an alumnus of Cambridge University and a member of Wolfson College, where he read for a PhD in historical musicology. His ongoing research focuses on the sonic and social cultures of late eighteenth-century Jamaica, particularly the roles played by Black women in early accounts of Jamaican street pageantry.

Wayne’s doctoral thesis explored the life and creative outputs of the Anglo-Jamaican organist Samuel Felsted (1743-1802), observing how his musicking (and that of Kingston’s European-origin minority) contributed to the construction of a racialised white-Creole identity.

In addition to his research, Wayne is interested in how social politics shapes access to music education today. He lectures on issues in jazz studies at King’s while holding various other academic and professional organist roles in London and Cambridge.

Formerly a secondary school music teacher and assistant housemaster in an international boarding school, Wayne previously studied at Edinburgh University. He holds the Associate Diploma of the Royal College of Organists and, when not otherwise engaged, enjoys preparing performing editions of historical sheet music manuscripts.

Selected Publications

• The Making of Jamaica’s ‘First Composer’: Rethinking Samuel Felsted, Eighteenth-Century Music, 20.2 (2023).
• Contextualizing Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaican Oratorio: Obstacles and Opportunities, in Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre: Issues in Research, Writing and Methodology, ed. Julia Prest(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023), 135–157.