Lauren’s research spans composition, performance and contemporary musicology., with a focuses on the music and aesthetics of the 21st Century and the methodological critique of practice research.
Staff details
Position
Head of Department, Reader in 20th and 21st Century Music
My primary interests are in 20th and 21st Century Music; my musicological work focuses on the aesthetics and sociosemiotics of music, psychoanalytic perspectives on music, minority discourse, anti-aesthetics, materialism and notation. I am also a composer of experimental music whose scores are published by Material Press (Berlin) and a performer of music for organ and electronics. My music has been released on the engraved glass, sfz music, Innova, and pan y Rosas discos labels. My current research falls into three broad areas: the methodological critique of practice research, concentrating on its epistemology and phenomenology; the investigation of materiality and notation through experimental approaches to composition; and the development of live-interactive approaches to performance for organ and electronics through collaboration with other composers. I have recently published on the music of composers Michael Finnissy, Chris Newman, and Annette Schmucki. From 2013-2018 I was the president of the RMA’s Music and/as Process Study group, in which role I organised many conferences and edited two collected volumes of research. I am the chair of the conference committee for the RMA’s 56th Annual Conference in 2020 which will take place as an online event.
Teaching I currently lead the following modules: Approaches to Contemporary Music (Level 4), Aesthetics, Meaning and Culture (Level 5); Music/Modernities (Level 6); Creative Research Project (Level 6); Philosophies of Music (MA/Level 7). I have also contributed to topics on contemporary performance and 20th and 21st Century Music across the curriculum. I also supervise dissertations and creative projects at Undergraduate and Masters level. I have previously taught composition across all levels of Higher Education. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority and am currently the Co-Head of the Department of Music, the Head of Undergraduate studies and the Chair of the Learning and Teaching Committee for Music.
Redhead, L; Zaldua, Alistair; Gisby, S and Stone, S. 2017. Performing Temporal Processes. New Sound International Journal of Music, 50, pp. 113-127. ISSN 0354-818X
Hawes, V and Redhead, L. 2016. Introduction. In: V Hawes and L Redhead, eds. Music and/as Process. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 1-8. ISBN 978-1-4438-9491-3
Redhead, L and Zaldua, Alistair. 2016. 'The Organ as Live Interface'. In: International Conference on Live Interfaces. University of Sussex 29 June - 3 July 2016.
20th and 21st century music; music aesthetics; music and philosophy; music semiotics; analysis of 20th century music; contemporary music performance practices; practice research; composition
Areas of supervision
At present I supervise 9 PhD students at Goldsmiths.My completed PhD students have undertaken research on the performance of contemporary microtonal music for the recorder, the composition and facilitation of experimental music projects for community choirs, and interrelation in the performance of Improvised Music.My current PhD students are focused on a range of topics, including interdisciplinary approaches to Practice Research that encompass sound, performance, and art; the aesthetics and historiography of the presentation of the ‘past’ in music; and composition projects embracing opera, the theatre, experimental music and sound art. I am interested in supervising projects in the areas of practice research in music, the aesthetics and philosophy of contemporary music, the analysis of 20th and 21st century music, and experimental approaches to performance.I have examined PhDs at the University of Bangor, the University of Salford, Edinburgh Napier University and Kings College, London as well as internally at Goldsmiths and Canterbury Christ Church University. I have also supervised many undergraduate and masters dissertations on topics including film music, music education, music analysis, contemporary aesthetics and music in the community.
