Dr Katharine Norman

Katharine NormanHead of Music

A composer, writer and sound artist, Katharine Norman’s PhD research (Princeton, 1993) focused on computer music composition and written research on listening relationships to documentary sound recordings. In her instrumental composition she has concentrated on works for solo piano.


Previous posts include Sheffield University and Goldsmiths, where she was director of the Electronic Music Studios. She has also taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in the department of Communications at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia and in the department of English at Anglia Ruskin University. She returned to music academia in 2009 after six years working freelance alongside a separate career as a professional writer and editor for the reference and educational market, and was for a year managing editor of the Cambridge Journal of Economics.


Her music is promoted by the British Information Centre and can also be found at novamara.com, last.fm and sonus.ca, and the Electronic Music Foundation, of which she is a charter member. Previous recognition for her instrumental and electroacoustic work includes selection for the ISCM World Music Days, finalist or honourable mentions at the Bourges, Russolo and Alea II composition competitions, and the Holst Award (1995).


Increasingly active as a writer on electronic and experimental music, Katharine Norman's cross-disciplinary book, Sounding Art: Eight Literary Excursions through Electronic Music (Ashgate, 2004), explores electronic music through the context of other arts and disciplines, and vice versa. 

Research interests

Composition, contemporary and experimental electronic and digital music; sound-based art; creative and experimental writing about music; acoustic ecology; aural culture; net-based art and electronic literature.

Research and publications

  • Islands of One, 2007, electroacoustic (with text). Commissioned by The Western Front, Vancouver, British Columbia. First performance June 2007, De Montfort University, EMS07 Conference. Selected for the media show of the Electronic Literature Organization, 2008.
  • Two Thumbs Up (July 15, 1978), 2005, piano. Commissioned by Clive Williamson. First performance, Guildford International Festival, UK, 16 March, 2005. Recorded on One-Minute Wonders CD (Cadenza Music).
  • Sounding Art: Eight Literary Excursions through Electronic Music. book (and accompanying audio CD), Aldershot, UK and Vermont, USA: Ashgate, 2004.
  • Losing It, 2004. Live electronics/laptop computer. First performance, BLIM Gallery, Vancouver, 11 September 2004. Featured work on Sound Travels festival CD, Toronto, 2005. BBC broadcast August 2007, International Computer Music Conference 2008, Belfast.