Research-active Staff

Deborah Mawer

Emeritus Professor of Music

Deborah Mawer was formerly Research Professor of Music and Director of Research at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire; across 2016-19 she led a large AHRC-funded project, entitled ‘ Accenting the Classics: Durand’s Édition classique (c. 1915 - 25) as a French Prism on the Musical Past ’. She joined the Conservatoire in 2013,...

Dr Paul Norman

Paul Norman’s composition practice places emphasis on ideas and concepts and includes visual and performative elements in both the composition process and performance.   Norman has produced solo projects and interdisciplinary collaborations together with dance, fine art and theatre, showing his work across Europe,...

Dr Martin Perkins

Head of Historical Performance, Senior Lecturer and Instrument Curator

Martin Perkins started his undergraduate studies at Birmingham Conservatoire in 1993 where he studied composition and French Horn. However, his interest in Early Music soon led him to the harpsichord and, after studies with Lucy Carolan, he graduated with an MA in 1998. For his MPhil, at the University of Birmingham, he studied...

Dr Caroline Potter

Visiting Reader in French Music

Caroline Potter is an award-winning writer and academic who specialises in French music, based in London. Currently Visiting Reader in French Music at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, she has held full-time academic positions in the Music departments of Roehampton and Kingston Universities. She gives guest lectures and...

Professor Graham Sadler

Research Professor in Music

Professor Sadler is known internationally as an authority on French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After studying at the Universities of Nottingham and London and the Royal College of Music, he joined the Music Department at the University of Hull, where he remained as lecturer, reader and eventually...

Professor Jamie Savan

Director of Research, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

Jamie Savan is Professor of Performance-led Research in Music and Director of Research at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire , and co-director of BCU's Performance Research Hub . He joined BCU in 2016, having previously worked as a Senior Lecturer and Head of Performance at Newcastle University. Best known as a performer of...

Dr Luan Shaw

Associate Professor (Music Education) and Director of Postgraduate Studies (Music)

Dr Luan Shaw is Associate Professor (Music Education) and Director of Postgraduate Studies  (Music) . She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and was made an Honorary Member of RBC in 2001. In her former role as RBC’s first Head of Pedagogy (2011-2018), she led the significant expansion of provision...

Howard Skempton

Lecturer in Composition

Howard Skempton was born in Chester in 1947, and has worked as a composer, accordionist, and music publisher. He studied in London with Cornelius Cardew from 1967, who helped him to discover a musical language of great simplicity. Since then he has continued to write undeflected by compositional trends, producing a corpus of...

Jeffrey Skidmore OBE

Artistic Director of Early Music

Jeffrey Skidmore OBE is one of the country’s foremost choral conductors and is highly regarded by instrumentalists, singers and audiences for the high quality of his performances. He is well-known for exciting programming which is often challenging but always accessible. Jeffrey read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, before...