MUSICOLOGIST

Karen is a musicology researcher.  Her PhD is in Music, from the University of Glasgow (2009).  Before becoming a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2024, she was partially seconded to Research & Knowledge Exchange at RCS (2012-24).  Her first book, Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era, was published by Ashgate (2013).  She has contributed chapters to Understanding Scotland Musically (2018). and Music by Subscription (2022), both Routledge, with another commissioned chapter for a Lang collection, and articles in the press.  Her second Routledge monograph,  A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951, was published 31 October 2024.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS.

December 2025, awarded Athenaeum Award, Silver and Gold: Leng Medal Memories (oral history of a Dundee award for singing Scottish songs)

January-September 2025, IASH Heritage Collections Fellowship (Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities) at the University of Edinburgh.

September-December 2023, the first holder of the honorary Ketelbey Research Fellowship in Late Modern History, in the University of St Andrews’ School of History. 

August 2017-Ocotober 2018, awarded AHRC Networking Grant: The Claimed from Stationers' Hall network, exploring legal deposit music in British libraries.

October 2015-April 2016, An Athenaeum Award by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, enabled Karen to commence part-time research into the Stationers’ Hall music collection at the University of St Andrews.

October 2012-15, part-time postdoctoral researcher to the Bass Culture project looking at accompaniments in Scottish fiddle music, an AHRC-funded project spearheaded by Glasgow University.

EDUCATIONALIST.  Karen is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. (HEA is now part of Advance HE), and has a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Arts Education.   Her PG Certificate project explored the best ways to maximise student engagement in such topics such as electronic resources, bibliographic citation, or historic Scottish music books, in the context of library instruction.  Karen lectures on Scottish music, research and bibliographic skills, and has provided maternity leave teaching cover for an Honours year research project module.

Karen has co-organised Musica Scotica conferences; has reviewed books in a variety of periodicals including Times Higher Education's 'What are you Reading?' column; and is a keen advocate of networking in connection with research and career opportunities.

FORMER LIBRARIAN.  Karen has a Postgraduate Diploma in Librarianship (Distinction) and was a Fellow of CILIP (FCLIP) until she ceased to work as a librarian.  As a Performing Arts Librarian, Karen curated music materials at RCS for a number of years, latterly focusing on developing the library's music stock composed by women and by BIPOC composers, also giving presentations and publishing on this topic. Karen was awarded honorary Fellowship of IAML(UK & Irl), the national branch of the International Association of Music Libraries) in 2024.

Karen is interested in the transmission of repertoires.  Whilst her early research was into plainsong and mediaeval polyphony, most of Karen's research has been into later Scottish music: 18th-19th century Scottish song collecting; historic Scottish dance music publications; early legal deposit music in British libraries;  fin-de-siecle/early 20th century amateur music making and pedagogy in Scotland; and the lives of female musicians in that era.

Networking

Karen's  AHRC Networking grant prompted increased interest in historical legal deposit music in the UK.   Having made significant steps in research into the collection at the University of St Andrews, the network looked at the other collections to explore other dimensions, and a workshop took place in March 2018.  The 'Claimed from Stationers' Hall' network blog is now at https://karenmcaulaymusicologist.blog/ 

Karen has also been  on the steering groups of two research networks based at the University of Glasgow, EAERN (Eighteenth-Century Arts Education Research Network) and Romantic National Song Network; and has recently joined the advisory board for the University of Sussex's newly-established Promiscuous Print (Prom Print): What Copyright Libraries Left Out (promiscuousprint.com)