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Professor Stephen Broad

Director of Research and Engagement

Professor Stephen Broad is an islander in exile, researcher, teacher, community conductor and occasional broadcaster. He studied at the Music School of Douglas Academy (Piano with Anne Crawford and composition with William Sweeney) and then at the University of Glasgow, where he won prizes in music and physics. He undertook a DPhil in Historical Musicology at Worcester College, Oxford with the late Robert Sherlaw Johnson and with Annegret Fauser, and is Director of Research and Engagement at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Stephen’s studies were multidisciplinary and his research interests similarly span a number of fields, centred around three broad themes:

1. Historical musicology, especially Olivier Messiaen and his early career and writings, which have been a particular focus of study and publication; music and ideas in 1930s France, mythologies in biography and autobiography; and problems of musical historiography.

2. Music education, especially music learning and teaching in diverse contexts (such as community settings and advanced professional training) and a range of applied research and consultancy to support government and other policy development in the arts and education.

3. The philosophy of practice-based research, with a particular interest in music in the context of other practices in the arts, humanities and sciences, and researcher development in practice-based research.

Stephen is Chair of the European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (EPARM), run under the auspices of the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC).

Stephen has a wide teaching experience in higher education, oversees a number of PhD and DPerf students, and has supervised the following completed doctoral projects:

He is also active as an adjudicator and conductor of community and amateur orchestras, and is particularly proud to work with the great family of musicians that is Stirling Orchestra, grand finalists in the BBC programme All Together Now: The Great Orchestra Challenge.