Professor Andrew Kirkman BA, MMus, PhD

Department of Music
Peyton and Barber Professor of Music

Contact details

Email: a.kirkman@bham.ac.uk

Address: Bramall Music Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I work on sacred music of the fifteenth century music, which I also direct with my professional vocal ensemble, The Binchois Consort. I teach on a wide range of topics from medieval to popular music and have also had a busy career as a freelance professional violinist.

Teaching

At Birmingham I teach courses in music in the Renaissance, music in the 1960s and other topics. I am also director of the Centre for Early Music Performance and Research and in that capacity direct the University Chamber Orchestra, a forum for learning period instrument and vocal styles, coached by specialists in the field.

Postgraduate supervision

I have supervised PhD topics as diverse as 'Music in Post-Communist Poland' and 'The iPad', but am particularly happy to supervise students wishing to study topics in late medieval and renaissance music, in terms of repertory, cultural practice and historiography.

Find out more - our Music postgraduate study page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

I have published and lectured on various aspects of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century music. My earlier publications looked principally at issues of style and influence. More recently I have been more concerned with the historiography and cultural context of music for the Mass from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century, an interest that resulted in my book The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass (CUP, 2010). I am currently writing up my latest monograph, on music and culture in the late-medieval collegiate church of St Omer, Saint-Omer, Northern France. Other recent publications include an anthology of essays, Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film,edited jointly with Alexander Ivashkin.

I combine my scholarly work with that of a performer, and have directed a wide range of ensembles, including choirs, orchestras and various period-instrument ensembles. I founded The Binchois Consort in 1995, since when it has made ten recordings, all on the Hyperion label. Our recordings and performances, of music by Du Fay, Binchois, Josquin, Busnoys and others, have received universally strong critical acclaim and many music industry prizes, including Gramophone ‘Early Music Recording of the Year’ for its recording ‘Music for St James the Greater by Guillaume Du Fay.’ Our latest CD, 'Music for the Hundred Years' War', is scheduled for release on March 31st. I have also had a busy career as a freelance violinist, and, with pianist Clipper Erickson, recently released a recording of world premiere performances of violin sonatas by Cyril Scott.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Kirkman, A 2019, Music and Musicians at the Collegiate Church of St-Omer: Crucible of Song, 1350-1550. Cambridge University Press. <https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/music/medieval-and-renaissance-music/music-and-musicians-collegiate-church-st-omer-crucible-song-13501550?format=HB&isbn=9781108839723>

Kirkman, A & Ivashkin, A 2012, Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film. Ashgate.

Article

Kirkman, A & Weller, P 2017, 'Music and Image/ Image and Music: the Creation and Meaning of Visual-Aural Force Fields in the Later Middle Ages', Early Music, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 55–75. https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cax005

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Kirkman, A 2020, Image, music and lived reality in fifteenth-century Midlands alabaster. in J Boffey (ed.), Performance, ceremony and display in late medieval England . Shaun Tyas.

Kirkman, A & Weller, P 2019, English Alabaster Images as Recipients of Music in the Long Fifteenth Century: English Sacred Traditions in a European Perspective. in Z Murat (ed.), English Alabaster Carvings and the Their Cultural Contexts. Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture, Boydell & Brewer. <https://boydellandbrewer.com/english-alabaster-carvings-and-their-cultural-contexts.html>

Kirkman, A 2015, The Polyphonic Mass in the Fifteenth Century. in AM Busse Berger & J Rodin (eds), The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music. Cambridge University Press, pp. 665-700. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139057813.048

Kirkman, A 2015, The nineteenth-century reception of fifteenth-century sacred music. in J Rodin & AM Busse Berger (eds), The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music. Cambridge University Press, pp. 802-910.

Chapter

Kirkman, A 2019, Structure and meaning in the Mass: the Ordinarium Missae and beyond. in A Pavanello & D Filippi (eds), Motet Cycles between Devotion and Liturgy. Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Scripta, vol. 7, Schwabe Verlag, Basel, Switzerland, pp. 19-36.

Vendrix, P, Colin, MA, Cavicchi, C & Kirkman, A 2012, La vie musicale à St Omer. in Renaissances musicales en Picardie 14e-17e.

Kirkman, A 2012, Organs and Instrumental Performance at the Collegiate Church of St Omer, Northern France, in the Later Middle Ages. in TJ McGee & S Carter (eds), Instruments, Ensembles, and Repertory,1300-1600: Essays in Honor of Keith Polk. Brepols Publishers.