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10 Last updated 9 October 2020.
Biography
I joined the University of Huddersfield as Queen’s Anniversary Prize Chair in Contemporary Music in January 2017.
Between 1999 and 2016 I was Lecturer and then Professor of Music at the University of Nottingham. At Nottingham I twice served as Head of Department, and acted also as Director of Research, REF Coordinator, Admissions Officer, Director of Postgraduate Studies, and Careers Officer. Between 1996 and 1999 I was Lecturer in Music at the University of Sussex.
I studied as a postgraduate student (MA and DPhil) at the University of Sussex, and as an undergraduate (BA) at Oxford University.
Research Expertise and Interests
My research interests include: contemporary music; music and democracy; music and modernism; the composers Louis Andriessen and Harrison Birtwistle; minimalism; music of the Netherlands; avant-garde music in the 1960s; new music theatre; the relationship between music and political/social movements; public subsidy and cultural policy; the Cold War; situationism; communism (especially outside the communist bloc).
I am author of The Music of Harrison Birtwistle (CUP, 2000), Louis Andriessen: De Staat (Ashgate, 2004), and Composing Dissent: Avant-garde Music in 1960s Amsterdam (OUP, 2013). I am editor of the volumes Sound Commitments: Avant-garde Music and the Sixties (OUP, 2009) and Red Strains: Music and Communism outside the Communist Bloc (OUP, 2013). I have published studies of Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, new music theatre, musical modernism, Dutch music, and musical temporality in multi-authored volumes and journals including Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Cambridge Opera Journal, Music and Letters, Musical Quarterly, and Journal of Musicology.
My research addresses a broad swathe of contemporary music, with a primary focus upon composers and 'concert hall' repertoire, but also encompassing avant-garde jazz, improvisation and cross-media participatory art. Binding all of my recent research has been a concern to delineate critically the relationship between progressive musicians' creative practice and their socio-political commitments - a relationship that I perceive as complex and sometimes contradictory.
My main project currently examines the relation of music and democracy. Ideas of democracy have been prevalent in many contemporary musical practices, from free improvisation and participatory musics to jazz performance and orchestra-focused social inclusion projects, yet this conjunction has received little sustained academic attention. How can different musical practices instantiate different ideas of democracy? What assumptions are made about democracy by 'democratic' musicians? What elements of democratic musical practices are placed beyond democratic debate? How does music contribute to the global circulation of contestable ideologies of democracy? I will be exploring these and other questions in a monograph provisionally entitled Musical Models of Democracy.
I am also involved as a senior researcher on the ERC-funded project Interactive Research in Music as Sound (IRiMaS), and editing a new volume on New Music Theatre, 1955-1975.
External positions
Deputy Chair, Sub-panel 33 'Music, Dance, Drama, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies', Research Excellence Framework 2021
5 Mar 2018 → 31 Dec 2021
Research Expertise and Interests
- Contemporary Music
- Music and Politics
- Modernism
- Democracy
- New Music Theatre
- avant-garde
- new music
- 1960s
- Amsterdam
- communism
- anarchism
- performance
- music analysis
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Projects
- 1 Finished
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Learning Freedom: Democracy and New Music in Post-Francoist Spain
Adlington, R. & Contreras-Zubillaga, I.
7/09/18 → 28/02/22
Project: Research
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Book Review: Routledge Handbook to Luigi Nono and Musical Thought. By Jonathan Impett. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. (Routledge handbooks.) [xxii, 9 unnumbered pages of plates, 527 p. ISBN 978-1-4094-5597-4 (hardcover) £190 (e-book) £114]
Adlington, R., 1 Oct 2021, In: Fontes Artis Musicae. 67, 4, p. 375-378 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Dance Article review
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Curating Difference: Elliott Carter and Democracy
Adlington, R., 3 Nov 2020, Finding Democracy in Music. Adlington, R. & Buch, E. (eds.). 1st ed. Routledge, p. 80-100 21 p. (Musical Cultures of the Twentieth Century).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
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Imagining Democracy in Music: Lessons from the Past
Adlington, R., 1 Dec 2020, Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik. Rebhahn, M. & Schaefer, T. (eds.). Schott Music GmbH & Co, Vol. 25. p. 28-34 7 p. (Contributions of New Music from Darmstadt; vol. 25).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review
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Introduction: Why 'new music theatre' now?
Adlington, R., 4 Apr 2019, New Music Theatre in Europe: Transformations Between 1955-1975. Adlington, R. (ed.). 1 ed. Abingdon & New York: Taylor and Francis Ltd., p. 1-11 11 p. (Musical Cultures of the Twentieth Century).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Foreword/postscript › peer-review
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Music Together, Music Apart: On Democratic Communities
Adlington, R., 2019, In: Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 144, 1, p. 191-204 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
Activities
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Rethinking Participatory Processes Through Music
Igor Contreras-Zubillaga (Organiser) & Robert Adlington (Organiser)
14 Jan 2021 → 15 Jan 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Organising a conference, workshop, ...
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Music and Political Democratisation in Late Twentieth Century
Igor Contreras-Zubillaga (Organiser) & Robert Adlington (Organiser)
6 Nov 2020Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Organising a conference, workshop, ...
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Themed Session: 'Music and the Third Wave of Democratisation in Southern Europe and the Global South'
Igor Contreras-Zubillaga (Speaker), Robert Adlington (Speaker), Mia Pistorius (Speaker), Daniel Party (Speaker) & Anna Papaeti (Speaker)
10 Sep 2020Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
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On the 'undemocratic' - in music and elsewhere
Robert Adlington (Speaker)
4 Feb 2020Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Grant Proposal Review
Robert Adlington (Other)
13 Jan 2020Activity: Other activity types › Grant peer-review