Lectures, talks and presentations

Listed chronologically in two categories: by invitation; by selection/CFP


By invitation:

  1. ‣ Keynote, “Why Do Words Have Songs”, workshop Performance Historiography: New Research Methods and Approaches, University of Ghent, September 2019.

  2. ‣ “Musik in der Gesellschaft der Krieger [Musik in Warrior Society]”, lecture series Musik in Gesellschaft. Herausforderungen an die musikalische Sozialforschung im 21. Jahrhundert, University of Leipzig, July 2019.

  3. ‣ “Stockhausen and Serialism”, study day Stockhausen in Depth at the Southbank Centre, London, June 2019.

  4. ‣ “Music and Torture: From Research to Impact”, conference Soundscapes of Trauma: Music, Violence, Therapy, Athens, May 2019.

  5. ‣ “What Did Battle Music Sound Like–And Why?”, workshop Sound and Music in War from the Middle Ages to the Present, Fribourg, November 2018.

  6. ‣“Harm and Harmony”, talk at the event “Earwitness” at the University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney, as part of the Eavesdropping festival, August 2018.

  7. ‣“Harm and Harmony: Music, Torture, and the Ideology of Western civilization”, Melbourne Law School as part of the Eavesdropping festival, August 2018.

  8. ‣ Talk on music at the event “Europe’s Artists and the First World War”, Institut Pierre Werner/Philharmonie Luxembourg, April 2018.

  9. ‣ “Music and the Framing of Violence”, RMA colloquium, University of Glasgow, February 2018.

  10. ‣ “Proving Music Torture”, Reid School of Music Research Seminar Series, University of Edinburgh, November 2017.

  11. ‣ “Proving Music Torture”, Music, Torture, Therapy: A Symposium on the Use of Music in Detention, Athens, November 2017.

  12. ‣ “Music and the Rituals of War”, Social Anthropology Seminar Series, University of Edinburgh, October 2017.

  13. ‣ “Vertont, vermittelt, verstellt: Der Krieg und die Musik”, Cologne Media Lectures, University of Cologne, July 2017.

  14. ‣Member of panel on gender and diversity in musicology, conference Gender  Studies in der Musikwissenschaft: Entwicklungen, Positionen, Tendenzen, Kunstuniversität Graz, June 2016

  15. ‣“Music, Community and Conflict”, symposium Religiosity, Relationality and Musicality in the Twenty-First Century, Yale University (via video), April 2016

  16. ‣ “Musik gegen die Menschenrechte? Musikalische Kommunikation und die Debatte um ‘hate speech’”, Department of Musicology, Technical University Dresden, November 2015

  17. ‣ “Barbaren vor den Tönen? Musik, der Krieg, und der wilde ‘Andere’”, plenary symposium Musik als Ideologem, annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, Halle, October 2015.

  18. ‣ “Musik und Krieg”, lecture-discussion at the festival klangTunnel, Erpel, July 2015.

  19. ‣ “‘Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn’: Musik als Instrument der Folter”, symposium during the Cologne Festival for Early Music, March 2015.

  20. ‣ “Towards a Social Musicology of War”, Music Department Research Colloquia, King’s College London, March 2015.

  21. ‣ “Music, Conflict and Human Rights”, Forum Recht als Kultur, Käte Hamburger Centre of Advanced Study “Law as Culture”, Bonn, February 2015.

  22. ‣ “Listening to torture”, symposium Unerhört!, Einstein Forum, Potsdam, January 2014.

  23. ‣ “Im Schatten des Schellenbaums: Die Deutschen, die Türken und die Militärmusik”, conference Transfer und Diversität. Musik und transkulturelle Praxis: Deutschland - Türkei, Berlin, October 2014.

  24. ‣ “Soundtrack eines Verbrechens: Musik als Folter”, festival My Sound of Music, Salzburg, October 2014.

  25. ‣ “‘... der Tod hinter uns her’: Musik bei der Schlacht im Ersten Weltkrieg”, lecture series Avantgarde?! Musikgeschichte 1914, organised by the State Institute for Music Research, Berlin, September 2014.

  26. ‣ “Bagpipes at the Front: Der Dudelsack als Kriegsmusik im Ersten Weltkrieg”, annual conference of the Military Music Centre of the German Army, Bonn, September 2014.

  27. ‣ Expert speaker on panel discussion “Kann Musik Folter sein?”, series HUMAN RIGHTS TALKS, Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institut für Menschenrechte, Vienna, April 2014, video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn2rbX3RVHs

  28. ‣ “Listening to torture”, The Listening Workshop, Humanities and Arts Research Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London, February 2014.

  29. ‣ “Ordinary men, ordinary music: Music and mass murder under National Socialism”, seminar in the  Department of Musicology Research Colloquium, Royal Holloway, University of London, February 2014.

  30. ‣ “Musikwissenschaft im Schatten des Nationalsozialismus”, lecture in the central university lecture series “Unser Land hat sich so gewandelt”: Erinnerung – Gesellschaft – Wissenschaft nach der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur,University of Göttingen, December 2013.

  31. ‣ “Zur Funktion von Musik bei Massenmord und Folter”, joint research colloquium of the Centre Marc Bloch/HU Lehrstuhl Musiksoziologie und Historische Anthropologie der Music November 2013.

  32. ‣ Member of scientific panel at the choral workshop weekend “The Ballad of Magna Carta” during the festival Toleranz - Eine Spurensuche: 22nd Knechtsteden Festival of Early Music, Cologne, September 2013.

  33. ‣ “Eine Musiksoziologie des Krieges?”, guest lecture in the colloquium Politik und Alltag, Institut für Kulturanthropologie und Europäische Ethnologie, Göttingen, January 2013. 

  34. ‣ “Was hat Musik mit Krieg zu tun?”, guest lecture in the university course Wirkungen von Musik: Theoretische und empirische Zugänge, Bremen, November 2012.

  35. ‣ “Music at the moment of violence”, symposium Topos InnenSaiten: 4. Magdeburger Symposium zu Musik und Musiktherapie, Magdeburg, October 2012.

  36. ‣ “Situating the music of the Great War: Historical and analytical perspectives”, symposium Musik bezieht Stellung: Funktionalisierung der Musik im Ersten Weltkrieg, Osnabrück, October 2012.

  37. ‣ “Was hat Musik mit Klang zu tun?”, lecture in the Ringvorlesung Was ist Musik? Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, June 2012.

  38. ‣ “Towards a social musicology of war”, keynote lecture, conference Music, Oppression and Resistance, Amsterdam, March 2012.

  39. ‣ “‘Du holde Kunst’? Musik als Instrument der Folter”, lecture in the Ringvorlesung Lautheit, Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg, January 2012.

  40. ‣ “MANTRA”, concert introduction, Stockhausen Concerts and Courses Kürten, August 2011.

  41. ‣ “The absolute and its absolution: Composition since 1950 and the search for the ‘genuinely musical’”, symposium Musik und Sprache: Ein Symposium mit Albrecht Wellmer, Graz, October 2010.

  42. ‣ “Andere Linien: Experimentelle Musik aus Amerika”, public lecture during Linien: Ein Festival für Neue Musik, Göttingen, August 2010.

  43. ‣ “Sung Communities: Gesungene Staatlichkeit im 18. Jahrhundert”, workshop “Helm ab zum Gebet!” Zur Berührung von Marsch und Chorale, Freie Universität Berlin, December 2009.

  44. ‣ “Der Tod tanzt: Musik und Völkermord”, public lecture series DenkBar, Göttingen, January 2009.

  45. ‣ “Musicology, conflict studies and human rights: Lessons from the past, approaches for the future”, conference Sociology of Music 2009, Lisbon, July 2009.

  46. ‣ “Freedom of expression and its limits: The view from musicology” Kulturwissenschafliches Labor, Centre for Modern Humanities, University of Göttingen, December 2008.

  47. ‣ “What is serialism?”, public symposium accompanying the festival Klang: A Tribute to Karlheinz Stockhausen, London, November 2008.

  48. ‣ Member of panel at the festival Klang: A Tribute To Karlheinz Stockhausen, South Bank Centre London, November 2008.

  49. ‣ “Die Funktion von (religiösen) Liedern in Konfliktsituationen, besonders der frühen Neuzeit”, workshop Gesangbücher, Psalter, Liederbücher, Wolfenbüttel, November 2008.

  50. ‣ Member of panel on the music of Stockhausen, BBC Proms, London, July 2008.

  51. ‣ “Vermittlung des Unmittelbaren? Ästhetische Vorbemerkungen zu einer musikalischen Medientheorie”, lecture series Ton und Prozess, Technische Universität Berlin, December 2003.

  52. ‣ “The world is round, And nothing thereon constant: An introduction to the music of Wolfgang Rihm”, Queen’s University Research Seminars in Musicology, Belfast, May 1997.


By selection/call for papers:

  1. ‣ “Music at the Moment of Violence: The Case of the Great Highland Bagpipe”, conference Music and War in Europe from the Napoleonic Era to WWI, Lucca, November 2014.

  2. ‣ “‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot? Scottish and global renderings of Auld Lang Syne in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries”, conference Understanding Scotland Musically, Newcastle, October 2014.

  3. ‣ “‘But we can still rise now /And be the nation again’? Group song and national identity in Scotland and the (former?) United Kingdom”, conference Anthems and Songs as Symbols of Collective Identity in Comparative Perspective, Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain), May 2014.

  4. ‣ “‘And for bonnie Annie Laurie’: A Scots song in the trenches”, Musica Scotica annual conference, Aberdeen, April 2014.

  5. ‣ “Theorising music’s role in genocide: An interdisciplinary approach”, conference Music and Genocide, Krakow, November 2012.

  6. ‣ “Music and torture: Methodological implications of a long-standing relationship”, conference Music, Methods and the Social, Leicester, May 2012.

  7. ‣ “‘Up to our knees in Fenian blood’: Fußballlieder und religiöse Gewalt in Schottland”, workshop Religiöse Gewalt als politische Praxis in der europäischen Moderne, Bielefeld, November-December 2011.

  8. ‣ (with Cornelia Nuxoll) “Children, music and the military: A historical overview”, conference Children and War – Past and Present, Salzburg, September-October 2010.

  9. ‣ “Yesterday’s child soldiers: Children as military musicians in the British armed forces in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century”, conference Militärmusik zwischen Nutzen und Missbrauch, Bonn, August-September 2010.

  10. ‣ “Music, memory and the legitimisation of violence: Some working hypotheses”, conference Conflict, Memory and Memorialisation: War and European Culture in the Twentieth Century, Liverpool, July 2010.

  11. ‣ “That’s what it’s all about? Sectarianism, human rights, and the strange case of the Hokey Cokey”, Musica Scotica annual conference, Glasgow, April 2010.

  12. ‣ “Hassreden, Hassmusik? Der Umgang mit dem völkerrechtlichen Verbot von Anstiftung zu Hass, Gewalt und Völkermord am Beispiel des Verfahrens gegen Simon Bikindi”, Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, Tübingen, September 2009.

  13. ‣ “Music, ‘hate speech’, and incitement to genocide: Legal and musicological perspectives”, conference Music and Morality, London, June 2009.

  14. ‣ “Musik im Dienst des Massenmords”, annual conference of the German chapter of the International Council for Traditional Music, Hamburg, February 2009.

  15. ‣ “Freund oder Feind? Thesen zu Musik und Konflikt”, conference Musik in Fremdwahrnehmung und Eigenbild, Bonn, September 2008.

  16. ‣ “The day ‘the music’ died”, conference Approaches to Music Research, Ljubljana, May 2008.

  17. ‣ “Invented tradition or auld acquaintance? Scottishness and Britishness in the nineteenth-century reception of Auld Lang Syne”, conference Music and the Construction of National Identity, Strasburg, October 2007.

  18. ‣ “For auld lang syne: Song and social coherence at the Last Night(s) of the Proms”, conference The Proms and British Musical Life, London, April 2007.

  19. ‣ “Auld Lang Syne and the missing link, or, How I stopped worrying and learned to love Kenneth McKellar”, conference Musica Scotica, Glasgow, April 2007.

  20. ‣ “Choosing and using your new national anthem: The definitive guide”, conference Musica Scotica, Edinburgh, May 2006.

  21. ‣ “Myth and reality in the songs of Robert Burns”, conference Musica Scotica, Glasgow, April 2007.

  22. ‣ (with Mirjam Gericke & Deniza Popova), “Medialitäten von Musik und Sprache: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede”, conference The Unifying Aspects of Cultures, Vienna 2003.

  23. ‣ “The semiotics of experimental music”, International Musicological Society Congress, Leuven, August 2002.

  24. ‣ (with Sophie Bertone & Wolfgang Fuhrmann), “Was ist neu an New Musicology?”, conference Interkultureller Transfer und nationale Auslegung: Europäische und anglo-amerikanische Positionen der Kulturwissenschaften, Göttingen, 2002.

  25. ‣ “Experimentelle Musik analysieren”, conference Musiktheorie zwischen Historie und Systematik, Dresden, October 2001.

  26. ‣ “Expression in serial music”, British Musicology Societies Conference, University of Surrey, July 1999.

  27. ‣ “Kompositorisches Material, Analytisches Material: Der Fall serieller Musik”, Conference Material und Technik im künstlerischen Schaffensprozess, Hochschule der Künste Berlin, November 1999.

  28. ‣ “On understanding Webern”, Theory and Analysis Graduate Students’ Day, Royal Holloway University of London, May 1999.