University of Huddersfield

Graduate Student, Music, Humanities and Media

PhD Research

School of Music, Humanities and Media

Thesis Title: ' Slate Grey Rain and Polished Euphoniums.'The Pennine Brass Band 1840 -1928, social and cultural influences on Working-Class and Northern Identities.

About

My research explores contested and popular themes in social and cultural history and musicology.  Even though brass bands were seen as a national movement, I am using the brass bands of the Southern Pennines to explain why they became a metonym for working-class cultural identity.  I use the brass band to explore a range of working-class identities that emerged in this period, including: community, rational recreation and social control, regional identity, working-class leisure, the link between musical performance practice and working-class cultural identity, musical hierarchies and issues of masculinity, status and domesticity. I also have interests in how musical cliches develop through history, the links between musical performance and civic and urban pride, and, outside music, the history of natural history as a working-class hobby.

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