School of Creative Arts, Film and Media (SCAFM)

I am Senior Lecturer in Music, having joined the university in 2001. Previously, I lectured in music for the Open University and Newcastle University where I also pursued postgraduate studies. My academic interests are wide ranging, encompassing the whole musical spectrum, from Claudio Monteverdi to Charles Mingus. My work brings new critical approaches to the study of music while also using music as a critical tool to explore other disciplines. Thus I am interested in psychoanalytical, sociological and philosophical understandings of interdisciplinary texts and practices involving music. I am founding editor of the journal, Studies in Musical Theatre (Intellect) and co-founder of the international Song, Stage and Screen conference.

A musicologist who has been active as a conductor, singer, pianist and trombonist, I have worked with the likes of Emma Kirkby, Carolyn Sampson, James Bowman, James Macmillan, Alfred Brendel, the Royal Opera, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Young Sinfonia, and Newcastle Cathedral Choir. I spent a period working in the Education Department of the Royal Opera House, London, whilst studying conducting with Michael Rose and Colin Metters (Royal Academy of Music). I conducted the Newcastle University Symphony Orchestra and Choir. Under my leadership the orchestra gave the world premiere of Charles Villiers Stanford's Cello Concerto and made several appearances on television. I now direct the university's choirs. Recently they gave the world premiere of the Italian version of Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline and sang on Today on BBC radio 4.

I enjoy teaching music in an interdisciplinary setting. I led the development of a new interdisciplinary degree programme in Creative and Performing Arts that started in October 2007 and continues to complement my research.

Current Research

Editions^{[Back to top]}

Burrows, G. (In preparation). Concerto Violoncello and Orchestra by Charles Villiers Stanford. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions.
This critical edition will be used as the basis for a new recording by Gemma Rosefield and collaborative practice as research based upon the concerto.

Articles^{[Back to top]}

Burrows, G. (In preparation). Raymond Scott's Lute Song. Studies in Musical Theatre. Burrows, G. (In preparation). Reworking a reworking: riffing on a trope of race in Duke Ellington's Beggar's Holiday. Jazz Perspectives.

Publications

PhD Thesis^{[Back to top]}

Burrows, G. (2010). The spectre of ideology in jazz: a consideration of the composer-bandleader as a musical figure of critique during the interwar years of the twentieth century with particular reference to Reginald Foresythe, Lil Hardin Armstrong, Raymond Scott and Duke Ellington. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Newcastle, Newcastle.

Journal Articles^{[Back to top]}

Burrows, G. & Symonds, D. (2009). Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 3(2), 141-142.

Symonds, D., & Burrows, G. (2008c). Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 2(3), 221-222.

Burrows, G., & Symonds, D. (2008b). Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 2(2), 125-126.

Burrows G., & Symonds, D. (2008a). Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 2(1), 3-4.

Burrows, G. (2007d). Black, brown and beige and the politics of signifyin(g): towards a critical understanding of Duke Ellington. Jazz Research Journal, 1(1), 45-71.

Burrows G., & Symonds, D. (2007c). Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 1(3), 225-226.

Burrows G., & Symonds, D. (2007b). Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 1(2), 121-122.

Burrows, G., & Symonds, D. (2007a). Editorial: out of the underworld. Studies in Musical Theatre, 1(1), 3-6.