Dr Stephen Wilford

Dr Stephen Wilford studied at the University of Aberdeen, Leeds College of Music, and Goldsmiths, University of London, before completing his AHRC-funded PhD at City, University of London under the supervision of Professor Stephen Cottrell, with a thesis focussing upon music-making amongst the Algerian diaspora community of London.

He is an ethnomusicologist whose work focuses upon North African musics, particularly those of Algeria, and spans a range of traditional and contemporary styles. He is particularly interested in the role of digital technologies in the production and circulation of music amongst North African composers, performers and listeners.

He has published articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Ethnomusicology Forum, Ethnomusicology Review (Sounding Board), and the journal of the UK-branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). He has articles forthcoming in Musicology Review and the World of Music (New Series).

He has taught within the Department of Music at City, University of London since 2012, and also teaches at the University of Southampton and Goldsmiths, University of London.

He is currently working alongside Dr Laudan Nooshin on the research project ‘Music and Digital Culture in the Middle East and North Africa’.

He was an Early Career Research Fellow of the Institute of Musical Research (2016-17), and is currently a member of both the national committee of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology and the ethnomusicology committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Research

• Algerian music and culture
• Music and diaspora
• Urban ethnomusicology
• Music and technology
• Music and digital culture
• Ethnographic film

Publications

Articles

‘Music, Identity and the Construction of Contemporary Algerian-London’. 2018 (forthcoming). Musicology Research (Special Issue on ‘Geography, Music, Space).

‘”We are all Algerian here”: Music, Community and Citizenship in Algerian London’. 2017. Sounding Board: Ethnomusicology Review.

‘”In our culture poets have more power than politicians”: The lives, deaths and legacies and Lounès Matoub and Cheb Hasni’. 2015. Journal@IASPM (The Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music), 5(2): pp. 41-57

Reviews

Review article: ‘World Music Studies’ (Regine Allgayer-Kaufmann, ed.). 2017 (forthcoming). The World of Music (New Series).

Review article: ‘This Thing Called Music: Essays in Honour of Bruno Nettl’ (Victoria Lindsay Levine and Philip V. Bohlman, eds.), Ethnomusicology Forum, 25(3): 380-383

Films

The Prince Zal Iranian Music Project (2013)

Sahara Nights [Studio Live] (2012)

New Beginnings (2011)

Other

‘A Taste of Algerian Music’. History Today Magazine, July 2012.

Professional Activities

• Institute of Musical Research Early Career Fellow (2016-17)
• British Forum for Ethnomusicology Committee Member (2016-current)
• Royal Anthropological Institute Ethnomusicology Committee Member (2013-current)