Email: j.cunningham@bangor.ac.uk

Phone: +44 (0) 1248 388278

Location: Music Building, Ground Floor / JP Theatre, First Floor

I joined the then School of Music at Bangor in September 2011. My degrees are from University College Dublin (BMus, 2000; MA, 2001) and the University of Leeds (PhD, 2007). I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the editorial committees of the Purcell Society and of Musica Britannica. 

My research covers a broad spectrum of topics and periods, though with a main interlinking theme of music as cultural history. I have published on a range of topics looking at secular music in Britain and Ireland, c.1600–1900. My monograph on William Lawes was published by Boydell and Brewer in 2010. I am especially interested in understanding the creative process as well as the interrelationship of music and literature. I have been the contributing music editor for the works of Ben Jonson (CUP, 2014), Shakespeare (OUP, 2017, 2018) and Katherine Philips (OUP, forthcoming). I am also interested in modern popular music, especially its interconnections with visual culture through the music video and other media. Among my current projects, I am working on responses to and the performance of Shakespearean music in Britain in the long nineteenth century, and an exploration of musical censorship in modern popular culture.

I was Director of Teaching and Learning in the former School of Music (2012-18), Director of Research and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Music) in the School of Music and Media (2018-20). I was Director of Research, Impact and Engagement, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Digital Ambassador at the School of Music, Drama and Performance (2020-21), and Head of the Dept of Music, Drama and Performance (2022-24). 

I am Head of the Dept of Arts, and Deputy Head of School.  

Follow John’s work on academia, where you will also find further information on research papers and publications.

John's research focusses on music as cultural history. His main interests are:

• Secular music in the British Isles, c.1600–1900
• Compositional process
• Music and drama in early modern England
• Modern popular music (contexts and analysis)
• Music videos and popular culture
• Shakespeare and music
• Music pedagogy
• Music and controversy
• Source studies and Editing

I teach a wide range of topics across a range of historical periods, with an emphasis on music before 1900. I also teach on modern popular music, and I lead on the Music Education MA programme. In 2023/24 I coordinate and teach the following modules:

• WXM 1004 Melody and Harmony 
• WXM 1301 Music 1550–1850: Music as Cultural History 
• WXM 2205 / 3205 Notation and Editing
• WMP 4108 Investigating Music
• WMP 4124 Contemporary Music Education Project
• WMP 4062 Advanced Research Methods (Music Education) 
• WMP 4064 Music Education: Theories and Practices 
• WMP 4065 Teaching Music Today 
• WMP 4063 Music Education: Research Project

 I also teach on the following modules:

• WXM 1300 Music since 1850 
• WMP 4103 Music in Society 
• KAH 4401 Understanding the Middle Ages
• QXE 4025 Manuscripts and Printed Books

Previous modules

• WXM 1001 / 1002 The Study of Music
• WXM 1004 Introduction Harmony and Counterpoint
• WXM 2001 / 3001 Telemann
• WXM 2002 / 3002 Classical Symphony
• WXM 2007 / 3007 Music and Politics in 17th-Century England
• WXM 2014 / 3014 The Trio Sonata in England
• WXM 2019 / 3019 Opera: Monteverdi to Mozart
• WXM 2022 / 3022 Analysing Popular Music
• WXM 2127 / 3127 Music on the English Stage, c.1600–95
• WXM 2160 / 3160 The Beatles
• WXM 2198 / 3198 Handel
• WXM 2207 Advanced Harmony and Counterpoint
• WXM 2303 / 3305 Genres and Composers A/C (Mozart)
• WXM 2304 / 3306 Genres and Composers B/D (The Concerto: Baroque to Contemporary)
• WXM 3302 Fugue
• WXP 2247 / 3247 Historical Performance
• WMP 4101 Music in Historical Context
• WMP 4041 Early Music 

Current PhD students

• Rong Rui
• Anna Huang
• Min Zhu
• Luxi Tian 
• Hanniel Wei Cheung
• Christopher Johnson 
• Minghong Tang 
• Danping Li
• Yanchen Hou 

Sucessfully completed PhD students

• Fueanglada (Organ) Prawang: The influence of Western music on the development of Thai opera (2021)
• Stephen Bullamore, ‘The Anthems of John Weldon’ (2014)

Conference papers and research seminars 

• ‘The Fantasias from William Lawes’s Royall Consort’, RMA Research Students’ Conference, Durham and Newcastle Universities (30 March−1 April 2005)
• ‘The Lyra-Viol Trio in Early Stuart England’, RMA Research Students’ Conference, University of Leeds (4−7 January 2006)
• ‘William Lawes and the “Irish” Harp Consort?’, Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick (5−7 May 2006)
• ‘Revisions in the Lyra-Viol Trios of William Lawes’, Twelfth Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, University of Warsaw (26−30 July 2006)
• ‘William Lawes and the Harp Consort’, Research Students’ Study-Day, School of Music, University of Leeds (13 December 2006)
• ‘The Division of Originality: Lawes, Jenkins and the “Division-Fantasia”’, RMA Research Students’ Conference, University of Bristol (3−6 January 2007)
• ‘Anglo-Irish Musical Relations in the Seventeenth Century’, Musical Journeys with the Flight of the Earls: Interdisciplinary Symposium, Dublin Institute of Technology, Conservatory of Music and Drama (3 February 2007)
• ‘The Development of the Two-Part Aire in Early Seventeenth Century England’, Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, Dublin Institute of Technology, Conservatory of Music and Drama (11−13 May 2007)
• ‘“Composed in the way of a Fancy’: William Lawes and the Fantasia-Suite’, Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, Waterford Institute of Technology (9−11 May 2008)
• ‘A Musical Miscellany: Marsh’s Library, Dublin, MS Z3.4.13’, Thirteenth Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, University of Leeds (2−6 July 2008)
• ‘A Meeting of Amateur and Professional: Playford’s “Compendious Collection” of Two-Part Airs, Court-Ayres (1655)’, Concepts of Creativity in Seventeenth-Century England: Two-day International Interdisciplinary Symposium, Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, University of Manchester (6−7 September 2008)
• ‘A Neglected Source of Lyra-Viol Music in Marsh’s Library, Dublin’, Seminars in Musicology, University College Dublin, School of Music (30 Oct. 2008): invited 
• ‘Appropriation and Approbation: Music and Cultural Assimilation in Ben Jonson’s Irish Masque at Court (1613)’, Music, Plantation and Migration: Interdisciplinary Symposium, Dublin Institute of Technology, Conservatory of Music and Drama (25 April 2009)
• ‘Ben Jonson’s Use of Music in the Early Plays’, Joint Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland and the Royal Musical Association, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin (9−12 July 2009)
• ‘Composition and Arrangement in the Lyra-Viol Repertoire’, Fourteenth Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Queen’s University Belfast (30 June−4 July 2010)
• ‘“I fear the little gentleman is in a galloping consumption”: The death and resurrection of Arne’s The Fairy Prince (1771)’, Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin (24–26 June 2011)
• ‘“Irregular and not always correct in harmony”: Revisions and re-creations in the consort music of William Lawes (1602–45)’, Seminars in Musicology, Bangor University (5 October 2011) 
• ‘“I have brought you a variety of noise”: Ben Jonson and Music, the late seventeenth century and beyond’, Seminars in Musicology, Edinburgh University (1 March 2012): invited
• ‘Mason’s Caractacus (1759) on the British stage’, Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, Dundalk Institute of Technology (15–17 June 2012)
• ‘Music and identity in Ben Jonson’s Irish Masque at Court’: The Inaugural Bangor Conference of Celtic Studies, Bangor University (20–23 July 2012)
• ‘Music and Ben Jonson’s dramatic works’, Fifteenth Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, University of Southampton (11−15 July 2012)
• ‘Performance, expectation and tradition in Shakespearean songs, c.1740–1760’: Shakespeare, Music and Performance Conference, The Shakespeare Globe, London (3–5 May 2013): invited
• ‘Transgressive soundscapes: “art” vs “popular” song in the early modern theatre’, Early Modern Soundscapes, Bangor University (24−25 April 2014) 
• ‘A New Messiah: Shakespeare, music, and the 1864 Tercentenary celebration’, Annual Conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, University College Dublin (6–8 June 2014)
• ‘Revision and revival: William Boyce’s David’s Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan (1736−1744)’, Sixteenth Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, University of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum, Salzburg (9–13 July 2014)
• ‘The roots of English Restoration opera in masque’ (panel on English opera), Eighth European Music Analysis Conference, University of Leuven (17−21 September 2014)
• ‘Words, music, and the cult of Shakespearean veneration: the 1864 Tercentenary Celebration’, Words and Music Study Day, Bangor University (2 May 2015) 
• ‘“Faint copies” and “excellent Originalls”: Composition and consumption of trio sonatas in England, c.1690–1710’, The geography of the trio sonata: new perspectives, University of Fribourg, Switzerland (21–22 May 2015): invited
• ‘Dowland’s Ayres in Transmission: Texts and Contexts’: John Dowland (?1563–1626)Study Day, Magdalene College, Oxford (4 May 2016): invited
• ‘New Light on Thomas Arne’s Setting of The Fairy Prince’, panel and roundtable on Thomas Arne Revisited, RMA Annual Conference, Guildhall, London (3–5 September, 2016)
• ‘Jonson’s songbook?’: Ben Jonson’s Workes and their contexts: 400 years on, Sheffield Centre for Early Modern Studies, Sheffield (12 Nov. 2016)
• ‘Arne, Shakespeare and the development of a canon’: Seminars in Musicology, Liverpool Hope University (15 March 2017)
• ‘Arne, nationalism and the English stage’: Seminars in Musicology, University College Dublin (5 April 2017)
• ‘Reimagining the “English” Trio Sonata’, Faculty of Music Research Colloquia, Oxford University (6 June 2017)
• ‘The Charles Dibdin Autograph Manuscripts in the Freemantle Collection’, Nineteenth-Century Music Conference, Birmingham University (28–30 June 2017)
• ‘Charles Dibdin at Leeds: the Freemantle Collection’, Music Research Colloquia, University of Leeds (15 February 2018)
• ‘Pompey’s Ghost’ from play-house to pulpit?, Traditional Tunes and Popular Airs Conference, University of Sheffield (8 June 2019)
• ‘Corbett’s last catalogue’, Musical Instrument Collectors and Collections, University of Oxford (23–5 August 2019)