Amanda Bayley

Personal statement

Amanda leads an interdisciplinary research group on Intercultural Communication through Practice. One of her research areas examines creative processes across repertoires, genres and cultures, including composer-performer collaborations and rehearsal analysis. She has been Co-Investigator on two projects funded by the European Research Council: Beyond East and West: developing and documenting an evolving transcultural musical practice (2015-2023); and Interactive Research in Music as Sound (2017-2023) leading an improvisation case study. She is co-editor of a new book series with Routledge on Transcultural Music Practices, reviews editor for Ethnomusicology Forum, and humanities editor for the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies.

Recent developments in Amanda’s research involve intersections between nature and music. In 2022-23 she led an ESRC/AHRC research network between the UK and South Korea on Ecotones: Soundscapes of Trees. A small, collaborative project on  Interspecies Listening in 2021 led to a NERC-funded project, Hear Water: building environmental empathy through deep listening (2022) followed by Hear Water: community and education resource (funded by a Bath Spa University AHRC Impact Accelerator Award (IAA) in 2023-24). 

The international context of her work extends to projects she leads with researchers in the UK and at the University of Zimbabwe, on Exploring and Exchanging Communications about Trees, and with researchers at the University of Namibia on Transforming Lives through Ethnomusicological Engagement in Kwando, Namibia. The latter was part-funded by Rapid Impact (AHRC IAA) in 2024. She has recently received Rapid Impact funds to support her research and performance in a British-Council funded project in 2025: The Phoenix Project: Rebuilding Hatay through Sounds and Music.

Amanda’s interests in the areas of performance and analysis, and processes of composition, rehearsal and performance in contemporary music, stem from her PhD at the University of Reading on Bartók Performance Studies. Playing viola she is a regular member of the Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra and the Crescent Quartet.

Amanda is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Bartók (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Recorded Music: Performance, Culture, and Technology (Cambridge University Press, 2010) for which she received the Ruth A. Solie Award from the American Musicological Society in 2011.

She was President of the Society for Music Analysis from 2004 to 2008. From 2007 to 2009 she led a collaborative research project with the Kreutzer Quartet and Michael Finnissy entitled: ‘From Composition to Performance: Innovations and Interactions in Contemporary String Quartets’ funded by a British Academy Larger Research Grant. One of the significant outputs of this research is the software DVD, Evolution and Collaboration: the composition, rehearsal and performance of Finnissy’s Second String Quartet, produced with Michael Clarke (University of Huddersfield) in 2011.

Additional outputs relating to this collaborative research include the Kreutzer Quartet’s DVD Quartet Choreography and their recording of Finnissy's Second and Third String Quartets, the latter being dedicated to Amanda in 2009.

Academic qualifications

• PhD - Reading
• MMus - Surrey
• BA (Hons) - Dartington College of Arts

Professional qualifications

• PGCertHE

Current scholarship

• For details of recent and current research projects, and areas for PhD supervision, please visit my website: http://amandabayley.co.uk/

Professional memberships

• AHRC Peer Review College (2014-2000)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Member of the international advisory panel for the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM) [2004-2009]
• President of the Society for Music Analysis [2004-2008]
• Committee member/Secretary of the National Association for Music in Higher Education [2002-2006]
• Events Officer of the Society for Music Analysis [2000-2004].

Current memberships:

• American Musicological Society
• British Forum for Ethnomusicology
• Royal Musical Association
• Society for Music Analysis
• Sound and Music.

External examiners

• University of Sheffield (2018-2022)
• Kingston University [BMus(Hons), 2005-2008] 
• Kneller Hall Military School of Music [BMus(Hons), 2005-2008].

Other external roles

• Reviews Editor for Ethnomusicology Forum (2024 - )
• Humanities Editor for the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies [2012-]
• Regular peer reviewer of articles for academic journals and book manuscripts [2005-].

Teaching Specialism

• Twentieth-century music history and analysis
• Performance Studies
• World Music
• Ethnomusicology