Dr Christopher Wiley
Senior Lecturer, Director of Undergraduate Studies
E: C.M.Wiley@city.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)20 7040 8279
Biography
Christopher Wiley completed his BA (Hons) in Music at St Anne's College, University of Oxford in 1998 and his MMus in Musicology and Performance at the University of Surrey, Guildford in 2000. His PhD dissertation (Royal Holloway, University of London), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, provides a critical examination of musical biography through studies of texts on a number of different canonical composers.Prior to joining the full-time staff at City University London in September 2005, Chris taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Open University, the University of Surrey, and Royal Holloway, principally on topics of Western art-music of the last three centuries and on aspects of music in popular culture. Chris became the Director of Undergraduate Studies at City in 2009, having undertaken the role of Director of the MA Programmes for the preceding four years.
Chris is the author of articles published in Music and Letters, Comparative Criticism, Dictionnaire Berlioz, Biography, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies and Musical Stages, and has contributed book chapters to volumes including A Companion to Malcolm Arnold, Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon, and Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle. He has presented papers on a wide variety of historical, critical, and contemporary topics at many international (and interdisciplinary) conferences, including the Keynote Address at the four-day 2008 Biennial Conference of Musicology hosted by the University of Arts, Belgrade.
Chris's current undergraduate teaching includes the modules 'Music Reception: Then and Now', 'Popular Music Studies', and 'Music and the Moving Image'. He also contributes to the MA programmes in the areas of research methods, popular music studies, and film music, and acts as a dissertation supervisor at all levels from BMus to DMA and PhD. His continuing commitment to teaching of the highest quality has been recognized in many awards including University Prizes for Teaching Excellence (2008), Teaching Innovation (2009), and the Student Voice Award (2011).
Chris frequently provides information and expert comment to the media on various popular and classical music topics, in which capacity he is best known for his participation in the press coverage of Michael Jackson's death in 2009. He is also active as a performer on oboe and keyboard instruments, and holds several music college diplomas.
Research interests
Musical Biography; Reception History; Historiography and Canonicity; Gender Studies; Historical Musicology, esp. Western art-music of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; Performance Studies, esp. Woodwind Repertories; Popular Music Studies; Music and the Moving Image, esp. Music for Television; Contemporary Musical Theatre; Teaching Practice and Innovation in Higher Education; Ethel Smyth.Research activities
Doctoral dissertation
'Rewriting Composers' Lives: Critical Historiography and Musical Biography', 2 Vols. (PhD diss., Royal Holloway, University of London, 2008). pp. vii, 396; ii, 203.
Articles in refereed journals
'"When a Woman Speaks the Truth About Her Body": Ethel Smyth, Virginia Woolf, and the Challenges of Lesbian Auto/biography' (extended version), Music and Letters, Vol. 85, No. 3 (August 2004), pp. 388-414.'"A Relic of an Age Still Capable of a Romantic Outlook": Musical Biography and The Master Musicians Series, 1899-1906', Comparative Criticism, Vol. 25, 'The Lives of the Disciplines: Comparative Biography' (November 2003), pp. 161-202.
Book chapters
'Mythological Motifs in the Biographical Accounts of Haydn's Later Life', in David Wyn Jones and Richard Chesser eds. Haydn. London: British Library, in press.'Putting the Music Back into Michael Jackson Studies', in Christopher Smit ed. Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle. Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming, 2012.
'Theorizing Television Music as Serial Art: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Narratology of Thematic Score', in Kendra Preston Leonard ed. Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010. pp. 23-67.
'Malcolm Arnold's Contribution to the Woodwind Repertory', in Raphael D. Thöne ed. A Companion to Malcolm Arnold. [Moers]: Edition Wissenschaft, 2011. pp. 31-57.
Conference proceedings
'Biography and the New Musicology', in Tatjana Marković and Vesna Mikić eds. (Auto)Biography as a Musicological Discourse: The Ninth International Conference of The Departments of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, 19-22 April 2008. Beograd [Belgrade]: Fakultet Muzicke Umetnosti, 2010. pp. 3-27.Articles in non-refereed journals
'"When a Woman Speaks the Truth About Her Body": Ethel Smyth, Virginia Woolf, and the Challenges of Lesbian Auto/biography', Virginia Woolf Bulletin, No. 9 (January 2002), pp. 19-28.Dictionary entries
'Adrien Boieldieu', 'Charles-Simon Catel', 'Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac', 'François-Joseph Gossec', 'Rodolphe Kreutzer', 'Etienne-Nicolas Méhul', 'Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny', 'Mourons pour la patrie (arr. Berlioz, 1848)', and 'Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle', in Dictionnaire Berlioz, ed. Pierre Citron, Cécile Reynaud, Jean-Pierre Bartoli, and Peter Bloom (Paris: Fayard, 2003). Translated by Odile Demange.Review
Review of Irving Godt, Marianna Martines: A Woman Composer in the Vienna of Mozart and Haydn, edited by John A. Rice, in Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (forthcoming, 2011).Review of Alexander S. Bermange, Odette: The Dark Side of Swan Lake, in Musical Stages: The World of Musical Theatre, No. 56 (Winter 2007/8), p. 38.
Review of Jolanta T. Pekacz (ed.), Musical Biography: Towards New Paradigms, in Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring 2007), pp. 215-9.
Scholarship in the media
Interview with Michael Floyd, 'Michael Jackson', FAULT Magazine (Summer 2009), p.150.Interview with Clarence Allen, 'Michael Jackson: Thrilling', youlikewelike.com, 6 July 2009.
Interview with Marisa Duffy on Abba and the film Mamma Mia!. 'My, my, how can we resist you?', The Herald, 3 July 2008.
'Andrew Lloyd Webber at 60', Musical Stages: The World of Musical Theatre, No. 57 (Spring 2008), p.7.
Television and radio
Live interview on BBC Three Counties Radio's 'The Other One Show', 8 March 2011, as the featured 'guru of the day'.Interview on Leicester's Demon FM, 17 December 2010. Subject: Michael Jackson's posthumously released Michael album.
Live interviews on the BBC News Channel, 26 June 2009 and BBC One (BBC Breakfast), 27 June 2009 (two interviews). Subject: Michael Jackson.
Interviews on LBC Radio (28 June 2009, live, plus podcast), BBC Radio Jersey (29 June 2009), Herts Mercury Radio (7 July 2009), and BBC Three Counties Radio (14 July 2009, live). Subject: Michael Jackson.
Interview on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Mr Haydn's London Experience', transmission date 26 May 2009, rebroadcast on Easter Day (4 April) 2010.
Live interview on BBC Radio 4's 'You and Yours' programme, 26 January 2007. Subject: Downloads and the UK Charts.
Press
Featured in articles in the Herts Advertiser ('Reflecting on the man in the mirror', 9 July 2009) and The Daily Record ('Lecturer says Michael Jackson should not be remembered as Wacko Jacko', 26 June 2009).Letters to the Editor in The Guardian ('East-west divide over Eurovision', 27 May 2008; 'Virtual music', 17 August 2007) and The Observer Review ('Britney's woes', 14 October 2007).
Expert comment contributed to numerous publications including The Sunday Times, Thelondonpaper, Eastern Daily Press, Hotcourses Postgraduate Guide, clashmusic.com and The Christian Science Monitor.
Educational output
'Identifying Best Practices in Writing Handbooks for Postgraduate Research Degrees at City University London', paper delivered at the Third Annual 'Learning at City' Conference, City University London, 23 June 2011.
Guardian Careers Forum, 'Live Q&A: What can I do with a degree in music?', Member of contributing panel of experts, 3 March 2011. Available online.
'Why study a music degree?', article contributed to icould.com, 15 July 2009.
Audio podcast on teaching practice and innovation (Episode 1 of 'Using Learning Technologies to Innovate Teaching at City'), released 2 July 2009.
'The Personal Response System: A View From the Chalkface', paper delivered at 'Learning and Teaching: Moving On', Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, 7 October 2009.
'The Personal Response System: A View From the Chalkface', paper delivered at the First Annual Learning at City Conference, 4 June 2009.
Presentations at Higher Education Conferences in London (2006-8, 2011), Birmingham (2007-8), and Canterbury (2007).
Selected conference papers and colloquia
'Musical Biography and the Myth of the Muse', to be delivered at Radical Music History Symposium 2011, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, 8-9 December 2011.'Putting the Music Back into Michael Jackson Studies', delivered at Kingston University London, 16 February 2010 (invited colloquium).
'Musical Biography and the Intervention of the Work-Concept', delivered at the 2009 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.
'Late Victorian Appropriations in the Biographies of Handel, Haydn, and Mendelssohn', delivered at 'Purcell, Handel, Haydn, and Mendelssohn: Anniversary Reflections', Royal Musical Association Conference, New College, Oxford, 27-29 March 2009.
'Mythological Motifs in the Biographical Accounts of Haydn's Later Life', delivered at 'Joseph Haydn and the Business of Music', British Library Conference Centre, 14-15 March 2009.
'Biography and the New Musicology', Keynote Address, delivered at '(Auto)Biography as a Musicological Discourse', Faculty of Music, University of Arts, Belgrade, 19-22 April 2008.
'Gender and the Perpetuation of the Beethoven/Schubert Mythology', delivered at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, University of Leeds, 28 November 2007.
'Mozart's Requiem, Musical Biography, and the Great Last Work', delivered at 'Words and Notes in the Nineteenth Century', Institute of Musical Research/Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2-3 July 2007.
'Biography, Historiography, and the Beethoven/Schubert Mythology', delivered at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory, Seattle, WA, 11-14 November 2004.
'Biography, Historiography, and the Beethoven/Schubert Mythology', delivered at the 13th Biennial International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music, University of Durham, 6-9 July 2004.
'Music and Literature: Ethel Smyth, Virginia Woolf, and "The First Woman to Write an Opera"', delivered at the 14th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, 'Back to Bloomsbury', Institute of English Studies, London, 23-26 June 2004.
'"A Relic of an Age Still Capable of a Romantic Outlook": The Master Musicians Series, 1899-1906', delivered at 'Music and Britain: A Social History Seminar', Institute of Historical Research, London, 18 November 2002.
'"I Believe the Subtext Here is Rapidly Becoming Text": Music, Gender, and Fantasy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer', delivered at 'Blood, Text, and Fears: Reading Around Buffy the Vampire Slayer', University of East Anglia, 19-20 October 2002.
'Abba and Gender Ideology in Popular Music', delivered at 'Love and Power', Royal Holloway, University of London and The Bedford Centre for the History of Women, 20 June 2002.
'"I Believe the Subtext Here is Rapidly Becoming Text": Music, Gender, and Fantasy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer', delivered at 'The Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art', University of Warwick, 11-12 May 2002.
'"When a Woman Speaks the Truth About Her Body": Ethel Smyth, Virginia Woolf, and the Challenges of Lesbian Auto/biography', delivered at Graduate Students' Colloquia, University of Oxford, 22 January 2002.
'"When a Woman Speaks the Truth About Her Body": Ethel Smyth, Virginia Woolf, and the Challenges of Lesbian Auto/biography', delivered at the 37th Annual Conference of the Royal Musical Association, 'The Theory and Practice of Musical Biography', King's College London, 19-21 October 2001.
Research students
A Musicological Ethnography of Female Popular Musicians in England, 1962-1971 (PhD, 2009-date, Sini Timonen)Pedagogical Elements in the Piano Works of Stefans Grové and their Potential Value in the Education of Gifted Young Pianists in South Africa (DMA, 2009-date, Ben Schoeman)
Robert Schumann's Musical-Aesthetical Influence on Brahms's Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 [1854 version] as Illustrated by Schumann's Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 63 (DMA, 2009-date, Annie Yim)
A Gendered Musicological Study of the Work of Four Leading Female Singer-Songwriters: Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, and Tori Amos (PhD, 2007-date, Levent Donat Berköz)
F. W. Ferling's 48 Studies, Op. 31 for Oboe (DMA, 2008-10, Kostis Hassiotis)
Electrocentral: The Influence of Weimar Culture on British Pop Music in the 1970s and 1980s (PhD, 2005-8, Nadya Ostroff)