Midlands Music Musings

This episode’s guest is Charlotte Doesburg who is a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant at University College London where she also completed her PhD in 2022. Her doctoral thesis analysed the adaptation of Baltic-Finnish folk poetry and the epic, the Kalevala, in metal music from Finland and connections to national identity in lyrics. She has previously published on the influence of the Kalevala in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and was co-editor of the volume titled Multilingual Metal: Sociocultural, Linguistic and Literary Perspectives on Heavy Metal published by Emerald in 2020.

In this episode, I speak to Madison Miller who is a PhD candidate studying nature soundscapes at the University of Wolverhampton. Madison has a background in multi-media and meditation practices and her creative practice involves pairing the sounds and images of nature to promote relaxation. She is a TEDx speaker, mental health advocate, and winner of the West Midlands Mental Health Star Awards 2022 by the West Midlands Combined Authority. Madison’s podcast project titled Core Opulence gives listener’s free access to nature soundscapes via YouTube and Spotify. For more information about Madison and her research, visit https://coreopulencemusic.com.

This episode’s guest is Tatjana Ostrovska who is a Latvian violinist and member of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. In 2011, Tatjana founded the NYX Trio – an ensemble of violin, flute, and piano – which aims to promote Latvian music and encourage composers to write for this unconventional ensemble. Aside from her performing career, Tatjana is a doctoral researcher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where her practice-based work focusses on live-streamed performances and the phenomenon of ‘the invisible audience’. To learn more about Tatjana and her work, visit https://www.tatjanaostrovska.com/.

In this episode, I speak to Taylor Rogers who is a decolonial feminist scholar and artist in Chicago. Taylor completed her PhD at Northwestern University where she researched the role of emotional numbness in perpetuating oppression. She currently teaches Philosophy at Loyola University while pursuing other collaborative art projects. Her latest multi-media research project with Indiana-based cinematographer Lillian Walker titled 'NOA: A Music Film', explores the liberatory role of grief using philosophy, music, dance, poetry, cinematography, and more. To watch a trailer of NOA, visit https://youtu.be/YPLGZ6uaE7k. For more information about the film, visit https://noamusicfilm.com/.

This episode’s guest is Dan Boucher who is a second-year PhD student at the University of Birmingham where his project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. His current research focusses on Germany’s opera culture in the Weimar Republic, particularly the role expressionism played in attempts at modernising opera. Listen on as we speak about modernism, expressionism, Kurt Weill’s Der Protagonist (1926), and Dan’s doctoral journey.