Diversity and the British String Quartet

diversity and the british string quartet logo

 

Primary Investigator:

Dr Joanna Bullivant

Departmental Lecturer in Historical Musicology

 

Co-Investigator:

Prof Samantha Dieckmann

Associate Professor, Faculty of Music

Fellow of Somerville College

 

 

 

Researchers:

Lauren Braithwaite and Aaliyah Booker (Faculty of Music)

 

Partner organisations:

Villiers Quartet

Faculty of Music

Text reads: Supported using public funding by Arts Council England

 

 

 

Collaborators:

Villiers String Quartet

St Gregory the Great Catholic School, Oxford

St Marylebone School, London 

Graveney School, London 

Framingham Earl High School, Norfolk 

Trinity Catholic School, Nottingham

 

About the project:

Diversity and the British String Quartet brings together composers, performers, students, and academics to explore issues of diversity in British classical music through the case study of the string quartet. The string quartet - and British classical music in general - are associated with elitism and exclusivity, yet historically the genre has attracted composers who defy this stereotype: women, BAME musicians, communists, and others from traditionally marginalised groups such as Ethel Smyth, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Elizabeth Maconchy. In this project, the Villiers Quartet and Oxford researchers will: commission and release as digital concerts new string quartets from British composers with varied connections to national identity; coach remotely 14-18 year old students from schools with low access to music education or diverse student bodies to compose their own string quartets with mentoring from Oxford students; and produce a live-streamed symposium with lectures, round-table discussion with composers, student workshops, and performances of historic British quartets.

See more information on the Symposium that was held as part of this project here

 

Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the

future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.