Dr David Smith
BMus Programme Coordinator and Senior Lecturer in Music
MA, DPhil, LTCL
Personal Details
| Telephone: | +44 (0)1224 274737 |
| E-mail: | d.j.smith@abdn.ac.uk |
| Personal website: | http://www.davidjsmith.org.uk |
| Address: | Department of Music Room 004 MacRobert Building King's College Aberdeen AB24 5UA Scotland UK t: +44 (0) 1224 274737 direct e: d.j.smith@abdn.ac.uk |
Biography
David Smith MA, DPhil, LTCL combines the role of Head of Music with that of Master of Chapel and Ceremonial Music.
He was organ scholar at St Peter's College, Oxford before moving to Wadham College as the first John Brookman Graduate Organ Scholar, where he completed a doctoral thesis on the instrumental music of Peter Philips (1560/61-1628). After a year as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Surrey, he became Assistant Director of Music at the University of Aberdeen, where his duties included research, direction of student ensembles, undergraduate teaching, and the development of distance learning music courses. As Head of Music he is responsible for music research, teaching and performance; he also directs King's College Chapel Choir and acts as University Organist.
David is in demand as an authority on early keyboard music from England and the Low Countries. Other research interests include consort and lute music, and he is currently working on an edition of consort music by Philips and Dering for Musica Britannica. He has also published on Scottish music manuscripts.
Research Interests
Early keyboard music from England, the Low Countries and Italy
Elizabethan and Jacobean consort and lute music
Peter Philips (1560/61-1628)
Scottish music manuscripts
Current Research
David is working on an edition of consort music by Peter Philips and Richard Dering for Musica Britannica. A chapter on editing early keyboard music is due to be published in Early Music Editing: Principles, Historiography, Future Directions early in 2012. Two further book chapters explore aspects of musical, relgious and social networks in the Early Modern period.
Future plans include an article on the origins of Peter Philips's 1580 Pavan (related to the edition of his consort music for Musica Britannica), an edited book on early English keyboard music and something on the earliest printed keyboard music in England to mark the 400th anniversary of Parthenia's publication in 2013.
Current PhD students:
Almut Boehme (Scottish music manuscripts in National Library of Scotland)
Shelagh Noden (revival of Roman Catholic Church music in Scotland)
Ralph Stelzenuller (early keyboard continuo in England)
Jane Leatherbarrow (Bach organ music)
Previous Doctoral Students
Vanballenberghe, Nathalie, 'Aspects of genre in the secular vocal music of Cornelis Verdonck (1563/4-1625)' (PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2007)
Collaborations
National Library of Scotland Scottish Song Index Project (in collaboration with Head of Music, National Library of Scotland)
Teaching Responsibilities
David teaches across a broad range of areas within Music, including not only his one specialist subjects and periods, but also general music history and harmony. As Head of Music, he has oversight of all areas of academic programmes.
External Responsibilities
Elvis Advisory Board (Electronic Locator of Vertical Interval Successions (ELVIS): The First Large Data-Driven Research Project on Musical Style)
Member of the Elphinstone Institute Advisory Board (2011-)
The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM)
-
Warden, Private Teachers Section, 2011-2014
-
Executive Committee (2010-)
-
ISM Governance Working Party (2010-)
-
Regional Councillor for East Scotland, Director and Trustee of Members Fund (2004-2007; 2008-2010)
Selected Publications
- Lute Intabulations of Works by Peter Philips, ed. D. J. Smith (Albury, 1998).
- Philips, P., Complete Keyboard Music, ed. D. J. Smith (Musica Britannica, 75; London, 1999).
- 'Italian Influence on the Music of Peter Philips (1560/61-1628): Musical Taste and Patronage in the Spanish Netherlands at the End of the Sixteenth Century', in E. Schreurs and B. Bouckaert (eds.), Giaches de Wert (1535-1596) and his Time / Migration of Musicians to and from the Low Countries (c.1400-1600) (Alamire Foundation Yearbooks, 3; Leuven, 1999), 191-209.
- ‘The Nature of Musical Influence: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and English Composers Active in the Southern Netherlands’, Sweelinck Studies, ed. P. Dirksen (Utrecht, 2002), pp. 65-84.
- ‘English Composers at the Archducal Court at Brussels and the Influence of their Music in the Spanish Netherlands’, XVIIe, XIXe, XXIe siècles: Bruxelles, carrefour européen de l’orgue (Brussels, 2002), pp. 21-30.
- ‘Francis Tregian the Younger as Music Copyist: a “Legend”?’, The Musical Times, 143 (Summar 2002), pp. 7-20.
- ‘“This Point which our Organists Use’: The English Pavan and the Origins of the Chromatic Fantasia’, The Organ Yearbook, 32 (2003), pp. 71-86.
- ‘Philips, Peter’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 13.
- 'Keyboard Music in Scotland: Genre, Gener and Context', Defining Strains: the Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century, ed. James Porter (Bern, 2007), pp. 97-125.