December 2025: On Music – a special issue of the journal Performance Research edited by myself and my University of Surrey colleagues Georgia Volioti and Chris Wiley – has been published online by Taylor and Francis. It contains two contributions from me: an article with Madeleine Shapiro about our piece The Gramophone Played, and my own contribution to the editorial entitled ‘Pirouetting on the Twists and Turns of Music Performance Studies’.
As with all collections of academic articles On Music took a lot of time and work to assemble, from making a final selection out of the many excellent submissions we received, to writing my own article with Madeleine, to the exhaustive (but rewarding) editing and proofing stages. All the editors are very proud of On Music; it charts the way in which the study of the act of musical performance has expanded in the last ten years into a huge range of areas – technological, ecological, educational, sociological – that stand alongside the more well known concerns of the discipline such as interpretation and collaboration.
In order to get to grips with what On Music deals with the editorial is the best place to start. Mine and Madeleine’s article deals with how our relationship and our music has been mediated by technology. Georgia’s and Chris’ articles help show the range of concerns addressed in the collection. Composers will also be interested in the articles by: Murphy McCaleb, Tanja Orning, Colin Frank and Jonathan Packham.
