Dr Tamsin Alexander
Staff details
I’m Director of Studies and Head of the Centre for Russian Music. My research focuses on the intersections of music, politics and technology, especially in the 19th century. I have worked on the international spread of Russian opera, considering how, why and in what shapes this repertoire moved. Most recently, that work has been published in Nineteenth-Century Music Review, Cambridge Opera Journal and Musiktheorie. Currently, I’m investigating the ways in which changing lighting technologies shaped musical culture in 19th-century London.
Academic qualifications
- Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, PhD 2015
- Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, MPhil 2009
- BMus (hons), King's College, London 2008
Research interests
Cultural history; sensory history; nineteenth-century musical and audiovisual cultures; opera; transnationalism and cosmopolitanism; music and politics; Russia; France; Britain; Czech lands; music and technology
Publications and research outputs
Book Section
Alexander, Tamsin. 2012. 'An “Extraordinary Engagement”: A Russian Opera Company in Britain, 1888’. In: Anthony Cross, ed. A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture. Open Book Publishers.
Article
Alexander, Tamsin. 2023. Cosmopolitan Connections: Yevgeny Onegin as realist drame lyrique in Nice. Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 20(2), pp. 335-357. ISSN 1479-4098
Alexander, Tamsin and Helmers, Rutger. 2023. Tsarist Russia and the Musical World: Introduction. Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 20(2), pp. 253-260. ISSN 1479-4098
Alexander, Tamsin. 2019. Review: Rimsky-Korsakov and his World. Ed. by Marina Frolova-Walker. Music & Letters, 100(4), pp. 733-735. ISSN 0027-4224
Alexander, Tamsin. 2017. Illuminating Gustavus the Third and the Art of Spectacle in 1830s London. Cambridge Opera Journal, 29(1), pp. 33-52. ISSN 0954-5867
Alexander, Tamsin. 2016. Review: 'Wagner in Russia, Poland and the Czech Lands: Musical, Literary, and Cultural Perspectives, ed. by Stephen Muir and Anastasia Beiina-Johnson'. Music and Letters, 97(2), pp. 351-353. ISSN 0027-4224
Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Review: 'A Musician Divided: Andre Tchaikowsky in his own words'. Music & Letters, 96(3), pp. 491-494.
Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Decentralising via Russia: Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in Nice, 1890. Cambridge Opera Journal, 27(1), pp. 35-62. ISSN 0954-5867
Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin in Britain, 1892 and 1906: Slipping between High and Low, Future and Past, East and West. Musiktheorie, 30(3), pp. 223-234. ISSN 0177-4182
Alexander, Tamsin. 2014. Too Russian for British Ears: La Vita per lo Czar at Covent Garden, 1887. Tekst. Kniga. Knigoizdaniye (Text. Book. Publishing), 2(6), pp. 30-48. ISSN 2306-2061
Broadcast
Alexander, Tamsin. 2017. Mosolov: Ten Artists that Shook the World.
Show/Exhibition
Alexander, Tamsin; Kondrashina, Evgeniya and Dixon, Gavin. 2018. The Centre for Russian Music: Inside the Collections A Barbican Music Library free exhibition. In: "The Centre for Russian Music: Inside the Collections", Barbican Music Library, London, United Kingdom, 12 January - 27 March 2018.
Thesis
Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Tales of Cultural Transfer: Russian Opera Abroad, 1866-1906. Doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge
Further profile content
Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups
PhD Supervision
I welcome applications for PhD projects relating to 19th/20th-century music and musical culture, Russian music, and opera. I have supervised topics on the Soviet classical recording industry, Italian opera in 19th-century London, and Rachmaninov's piano music. I am currently working with students on the production history of Prokofiev's Fiery Angel, and on Jewish composers in the Netherlands under the Nazi occupation.
