PhD students and topics

PhD students in Music come from around the world. Their musical and scholarly interests range from soundscape composition and live electronics, through critical editions and primary research in historical musicology, to ethnographic investigations into contemporary music scenes and cultural practices in Manchester and the wider world.

Hear why PhD researcher Hailu Ni chose The University of Manchester for her research.

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Find out more about the kinds of investigations undertaken by our PhD students past and present by exploring the project titles below:

  • Collaborative Soundscape Composition: Exploring Manchester’s Acoustic and Cultural Ecologies (Ryan Woods)
  • Fictioning Noise: A Guerilla Tactic Against Neoliberal Capitalism in Japan (Siyan Wei)
  • A Critical Edition of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers: Investigating the Potential of Digital Tools in the Production and Consumption of Critical Editions (Ameen Elbadri)
  • Mapping Moments in Musical Improvisations by People Living with Dementia and Their Companions: A Participatory Action Research Study (Ruth Shaw)
  • Heritage Beyond Borders: The Place of Band on the Wall in the Musical History and Socio-Cultural Life of Manchester (Xia Wang)
  • Sonifying the Self: Biological Data as the New Paradigm for Interactive Music Composition with Machine Learning for Biometrics (Chris Rhodes)
  • Old Sounds in Changing Urban Spaces: Place, Revitalisation and Innovation in the Trallalero Genovese (Thomas Proudfoot)
  • Beethoven’s Interest in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Its Impact on his Life and Music (Yos Van Der Zanden)
  • The Dekadas of National Art: Nationality in Soviet Music, 1936–1960 (Philip Wheldon-Robinson)
  • The Magic Circle and the MIDI Loop: The Online Discourses of Video Game Music Fandom (Morgan Hale)
  • Rock-a-Cha-Cha: The Erased Impact of Latin American Music on the Rhythmic Transformation of American Popular Music (Samuel Flynn)
  • Music and Spirit Possession in Yoruba Worship (Samuel Amusan)
  • The Relationship of Rhetoric to Gender Roles in Early Modern European Court Music (Shufei Dong)
  • Game Theory Applications in Music Composition: An Approach to Musical Indeterminacy and Performer Choice (Alex Apostolopoulos)
  • British Amateur Singers and Black South African Choral Music: The Politics of Access and Encounter (Kerry Firth)
  • Human Echoes of Divine Words: Spiritual Madrigals Based on Italian Poetic Paraphrases of Latin Sacred Texts (Ginte Medzvieckaite)
  • Perspectives on Harmony: Generating New Strategies for Harmonic Colour in Equal Temperament (Murrough Connolly)
  • Cassette Tape 2.0: Media Plasticity in Underground Music (James Vail)