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Highlights from Oxford Music in 2015

It’s hard to believe, but another busy year at Oxford University Press has gone by. Join our music team as we take a look back at the year that was 2015, from new scholarship to new faces, with a combination of computers, cake, and chicken.

January

University Press Scholarship Online reached a milestone of over 500 works of music scholarship available online from 20 university presses and scholarly publishers.

February

We welcomed Ben Selby as the new Director of Music Publishing.

Ben Selby RGB
Ben Selby, OUP Director of Music Publishing

Music Theory Spectrum‘s most read article of 2015, “What Did Danger Mouse Do? The Grey Album and Musical Composition in Configurable Culture” by Kyle Adams, was published.

Music & Letters‘ most read article of 2015, “Music, Memory, Emotion: Richard Strauss and The Legacies of War” by Neil Gregor, was published.

March

Joel Sachs, author of Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music, spoke with Donald Macleod at the Royal Academy of Music’s museum and bookstore discussing what makes Henry Cowell such a fascinating biographical subject.

Early Music‘s most read article of 2015, “Which Genial Day? More on the court of origin of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, with a shortlist of dates for its possible performance before King Charles II” by Andrew Pinnock, was published.

April

Grove Music Online updated with nearly 300 new articles from The Grove Dictionary of American Music, Second Edition, and nearly 300 from The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, Second Edition.

The Opera Quarterly‘s most read article of 2015, “Wagner after Freud: Stages of Analysis” by Tom Grey and Adrian Daub, was published. (It appears in Opera after Freud.)

May

Our Twitter account @OUPMusic hit the 5,000 follower mark on Twitter.

Composer Bob Chilcott celebrated his 60th birthday with a special concert and party in Oxford.

Chilcott (Bob) with grass 2015 small credit John Bellars
Bob Chilcott. Photo courtesy of John Bellars.

June

The Grove Music team welcomed Daniel DiPaolo to the team as Associate Editor.

July

The summer of 2015 saw the publication of our Kodaly Today Handbook Series, the first comprehensive system to update and apply the Kodály concepts to teaching music in elementary school classrooms.

BBC Proms celebrated its 120th anniversary and several of our authors and composers were involved in special events.

August

We welcomed Music Marketing Assistant Celine Aenlle-Rocha to the team.

John Rutter’s new major work, The Gift of Life, was published. Five members of the Music Department enjoyed the UK premiere in Coventry Cathedral.

We celebrated John Rutter’s 70th birthday at the Association of British Choral Directors‘ (ABCD) conference in Manchester with a special cake and champagne reception.

John Rutter 70 Cake 2 - G Sherlaw Johnson
John Rutter’s cake, photo courtesy of G Sherlaw Johnson

The Opera Quarterly published a special issue that focused on opera and dance.

September

The new James Bond song by Sam Smith was announced — the same month we published The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism by Adrian Daub and Charles Kronengold.

The Musical Quarterly‘s most read article of 2015, ““Making Songs Pay”: Tin Pan Alley’s Formula for Success” by Daniel Goldmark, was published.

October

General Editor of the acclaimed Voiceworks series, Peter Hunt, presented workshops promoting the series at three different music education conferences in Canada.

The 47th annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson award winners were announced! Several of our authors won including:

The Musical Quarterly published an issue this fall focusing on Tin Pan Alley.

November

On 22 November, a concert was held in memory of Sir David Willcocks at King’s College Chapel. The concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 1 December.

American Musicological Society awards were announced. Several of our authors won including:

At the AMS conference, Music Editor Norm Hirschy bumped into his good friend Colonel Sanders.

Norm Sanders
OUP Editor Norm Hirschy and Colonel Sanders at the AMS conference in Louisville.

December

The premiere of Howard Skempton’s epic The Rime of the Ancient Mariner took place on 4 December, performed by Roderick Williams and BCMG.

Early Music’s most recent issue focused on early music and modern technology.

Featured image: Image by Dark Rider. CC0 via Pixabay.

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