As part of a Getty-funded research project on contemporary experimental performance culture in Vietnam, he made the critically acclaimed film Hanoi Eclipse: The Music of Dai Lam Linh (Documentary Educational Resources, 56 minutes, 2010). He is also co-editor of two books: Music and Protest in 1968 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), which examines how music was integral to the profound cultural and political change that swept the globe around 1968; and Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives (Routledge, 2018). Barley is a member of the REF 2021 Sub-panel 33: Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies (2018-21) and he served as Chair of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology from 2015 to 2018.
Areas of supervision
Christopher Hanby: Applied Ethnomusicology and the Revitalisation of the Endangered Language of Jèrriais: A study of music, language ideology, and cultural identity in Jersey (Research funded by a CHASE studentship]
Lin Lin: Creative Realization in the Compositional Process: Exploring Hulusi Embellishing Techniques in Contemporary Flute Music
Clare Salaman: Reimagining an exotic instrument of the past in a contemporary context: The trumpet marine restored (Research funded by a CHASE Studentship)
Jasmine Hornabrook: Transnational networks, musical learning and performance in London's Tamil diaspora (Research funded by an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award)
Grants & awards
Barley Norton’s research has been funded by grants and scholarships from the Getty Foundation, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, and ASEASUK (Association for Southeast Asian Studies in the UK). In recent years, he has worked on applied international projects concerning the revival of Vietnamese music and audiovisual archiving.
This has included consultancy work on music heritage projects with the British Council, UNESCO, the Vietnam Musicology Institute, and the Vietnamese Institute for Culture and Art Studies. His co-edited volume Music and Protest in 1968 won the American Musicology Society’s 2014 Ruth A. Solie Award. His film “Hanoi Eclipse: The Music of Dai Lam Linh” was awarded a "Commendation - Intangible Culture Film Prize" at the Royal Anthropological Institute’s 12th International Festival of Ethnographic Film.
Journalism, radio and television
Writer for the world music magazine Songlines, including feature articles and CD reviews
Consultant, interviewee and interviewer for several BBC radio programmes including the two-part radio documentary “Vietnam’s Rock ’n’ Roll War”
Featured guest on several national Vietnamese Television (VTV) shows and documentaries, including a televised debate organised by the British Council on the theme of “Urban Beats” (“Dap Nhip Do Thi”) and the documentary “A Westerner Loves Our Music” (“Nguoi Tay Me Nhac Ta”)
Norton, Barley. 2021. Ethnomusicology and Filmmaking. In: Stephen Cottrell, ed. Music, Dance, Anthropology. Hertfordshire: Sean Kingston Publishing, pp. 121-143. ISBN 978-1-912385-31-7
Norton, Barley. 2018. Filming Music as Heritage. In: Hui Yu, ed. Ethnomusicology in Audiovisual Time. Zheijang: Zheijang University Press, pp. 78-90. ISBN 978-7-308-18210-2
Norton, Barley. 2010. “Nhân Học Âm Nhạc Việt?” (“The Anthropology of Vietnamese Music?”). In: Hy Van Luong, ed. Hiện Đậi và Động Thái của Truyền Thống Ở Việt Nam: Những Cách Tiếp Cận Nhân Học (Modernities and the Dynamics of Tradition in Vietnam: Anthropological Approaches). 2 Ho Chi Minh City: National University of Ho Chi Minh Press, pp. 623-636.
Norton, Barley and Blackburn, Philip. 2009. Vietnam: Music on the Move. In: Simon Broughton, ed. The Rough Guide to World Music: Europe and Asia. 2 London: Rough Guides, pp. 778-797. ISBN 1843538660
Dr Barley Norton’s research interests include ethnomusicological filmmaking and theory, the cultural politics of musical practice, discourse on cultural heritage and music revival, music and religious experience, music and emotion, music and gender theory, music censorship, improvisation, performance and modal theory. His academic research is informed by practice. During field research in Vietnam he learnt to play two Vietnamese lutes: the dan day and dan nguyet. He also plays Sundanese music from Indonesia on the kacapi zither and the gamelan degung orchestra.
Articles related to Professor Barley Norton BSc (Mus), MMus, PhD
