Kate Kennedy (writer)

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Kate Kennedy
Born (1977-09-24) 24 September 1977 (age 47)
Bristol, England
Occupation
  • Biographer
  • academic
  • broadcaster
Education Wells Cathedral School
Alma mater
Website
drkatekennedy.com

Kate Kennedy (born 24 September 1977) is a British biographer, academic and BBC broadcaster, who specialises in literature and music of the twentieth century. [1] She is the Director of Oxford University's Centre for Life-Writing and Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. [2] She is also Director of the Centre for the Study of Women Composers, Director of the Museum of Music History and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Bristol, Kennedy attended the specialist music school, Wells Cathedral School, where she studied as a cellist. In 1996 she commenced studying Music and then English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Despite a severe arm injury which affected her career as a cellist, in 2000 she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she studied for a postgraduate diploma in advanced performance. [4] She then completed a master's degree in twentieth-century literature at King's College London, and freelanced as a baroque cellist in London, helping to found the orchestra Southbank Sinfonia with its founder-conductor Simon Over, [5] before returning to Cambridge in 2005 where she completed a PhD at Clare Hall on the World War I poet and composer Ivor Gurney. [6]

Career

Kennedy has lectured in Music and English at Girton College, Cambridge, where she received a Katharine Jex-Blake Research Fellowship as well as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. [7] [8] In 2016 she became a member of the English faculty at Oxford University, where she is the associate director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing and Weinrebe Fellow at Wolfson College (founded by Hermione Lee in 2011), and holds a research fellowship in Life-Writing. [2]

Her 2024 book, Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound, tells the story of cellists Amedeo Baldovino (1916–1998), Pál Hermann (1902–1944), Lise Cristiani (1827–1853), and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch (born 1925), and their cellos. [9] It was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society's Storytelling Award 2025. [10] The award recognises work that newly or distinctly furthered the understanding of classical music in the UK.

Selected bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "Essential Classics, Music in the Great War: Austria-Hungary at War, This Week's Essential Classics Guest: Kate Kennedy". Essential Classics. BBC Radio 3. 20 April 2021. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Dr Kate Kennedy". oclw.web.ox.ac.uk.
  3. ↑ "Kate Kennedy". Wolfson College. Retrieved 10 March 2025.
  4. ↑ Kennedy, Kate (11 December 2024). "A moment that changed me: I was loving life as a cellist – then something snapped in my arm". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  5. ↑ "About us | Southbank Sinfonia". www.southbanksinfonia.co.uk.
  6. ↑ "Trudi Tate". Clare Hall Review. 2016. p. 40 – via Issuu.
  7. ↑ "The Year 2015" – via Issuu.[ dead link ]
  8. ↑ "Grant listings". leverhulme.ac.uk. Leverhulme Trust.
  9. ↑ John Check (27 December 2024). "Cello Review: Hearing a Deeper Melody". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 31 January 2025.
  10. ↑ "Storytelling". Royal Philharmonic Society. Retrieved 10 March 2025.
  11. ↑ "Manchester University Press – The Silent Morning". Manchester University Press.
  12. ↑ Kennedy, Kate, ed. (23 April 2018). Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works. Vol. 13. Boydell & Brewer. doi:10.1017/9781787442566. ISBN   9781787442566 – via Cambridge University Press.
  13. ↑ Kimberley, Nick (24 June 2014). "The Fateful Voyage, City of London Festival, Drapers' Hall – music". Evening Standard . London.
  14. ↑ Lives of Houses. Princeton University Press. 24 March 2020.
  15. ↑ Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney. Princeton University Press. ISBN   9780691212784 . Retrieved 31 January 2025.
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