Profile of Elina Hamilton

Name:

Elina G Hamilton

Position:

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Email:

elina.hamilton@bangor.ac.uk

Location:

Music Annexe

Phone:

+44 (0) 1248 388206

Background...

Elina Hamilton grew up in the beautiful mountains of Nagano, Japan. Having finished her Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at Portland State University in Portland, OR, USA (2007), she came to the School of Music at Bangor University in 2008 to research concepts of innovative notation for her master’s thesis (Writing Sound, 2009) which received the Parry Williams Postgraduate Prize. This research resulted in a conference she organized in March 2010, 'Off the Staves: Writing Music Before and After Conventional Notation', (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society) which brought together musicologists, performers and composers in an attempt to further understand music notation, both current and historical. Her research on this topic is on-going with recent performances of graphic notation with Vocal Constructivists (London) held at the South London Gallery and Morley College.

Currently, her PhD research topic examines medieval music theory. Although the content of theoretical treatises are known among musicologists, their actual use within a historical and educational context has never been thoroughly explored. Titled, 'Teaching the Old and New: Didactic Applications of Fourteenth-Century English Music Theory', her primary focus has been on Walter of Evesham’s (Walter Odington) De speculatione musica.

Elina Hamilton is a recipient of the 125th Anniversary Research Scholarship at Bangor University and has recently been awarded The Draper’s Medal for Outstanding Postgraduate Contribution.

Select International Conference Papers

‘Royal 12 C VI & Cotton Tiberius B IX: Theoretical Transmission in Medieval England’, Medieval-Renaissance Conference 2012 (July, 2012, Department of Music, Nottingham University)
‘Understanding the Heavens: Johannes Kepler in the Discourse of Musica’, The Boundaries of Musical Humanism: Slavic Regions & Mediterranean Culture (March, 2012,Centre for Mediterranean Studies, Dubrovnik, Croatia)
‘The Bread and Butter of Musica in the Middle Ages: The Endurance and Longevity of Theoretical Knowledge ’, The Gothic Revolution: Music in Western Europe 1100-1300 (November 2011, Department of Music, Princeton University)
‘The Tale of Two Walters: what the original sources tell us about De speculatione musica’, Medieval and Renaissance Conference (July, 2011, Institute d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona)
‘Sound Which is Music, Sound Which is Not’, Off the Staves: Writing Music Before and After Conventional Notation (March, 2010, School of Music, Bangor University)

Organisation of Conferences and Workshops

Jul 2012 Second International Workshop on Medieval Music Theory (Bangor) funded by a generous grant from IMEMS
Jul 2011 First International Workshop on Medieval Music Theory (Bangor)
May 2011 INTERCONNECTIONS: The Science, Art and Practice of Music First Institute of Musical Research Postgraduate Conference (Bangor) funded by the Institute of Musical Research, London
Jun 2010 ‘Every discrete person that redeth or hereth this…’: Readers, listeners and owners of books in the Middle Ages (Centre for Medieval Studies, Bangor University)Medievalism Transformed, International Postgraduate Conference
Mar 2010 ‘Off the Staves: Writing Music Before and After Conventional Notation’ (Bangor)funded by AHRC Student Led Initiative & Plainsong and Medieval Music Society

Teaching Responsibilities at Bangor University

Frédéric Chopin: The Pianist and His Music, module coordinator (2011-12)
Study of Music, lectures and seminars(since 2009-10)
Writing About Music, seminars(since 2009-10)