Brianna Robertson-Kirkland

Lecturer in Historical Musicology

Biography

Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland is a Lecturer in Historical Musicology at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is the Lead Research Associate for the AHRC-funded project 'The Edited Collection of Allan Ramsay' at the University of Glasgow. She has been a Visiting Fellow at Chawton House (2017) and the University of Sydney (2017 & 2019) with her most recent visit culminating in several practice-based, collaborative performances between Scotland’s Concerto Caledonia and Melbourne’s Evergreen Ensemble. Her research has fed into the historically led album Curious Caledonians (2020). Recent publications include Venanzio Rauzzini and the Birth of a New Style in English Singing Scandalous Lessons (2022) and Allan Ramsay’s The Tea Table Miscellany co-edited with Professor Murray Pittock and due to be published with Edinburgh University Press in 2023.

She is on the board of the British Society of Eighteenth-century Studies and is the Music editor for BSECS Criticks and she is the honorary secretary for the Society for Theatre Research. She established the successful ECR mentoring scheme with the Women's Studies Group 1558-1837. She can be found on Twitter as @BreeRob_Kirk.  

Brianna has spoken at the sold out TEDxGlasgow event, which is a locally organized event licensed by the famous TED organisation. She has sung in master classes and private lessons with early music specialists including Emma Kirkby, Nicholas Clapton and Robert Toft and regularly performs lecture-recitals at conferences and events.

Research interests

Brianna is particularly interested in eighteenth-century music education and how music education has adapted, changed and moulded into the current systems. She has a particular interest in the functionality of music treatises, the master-apprentice systems, the relationship between music and other disciplines in the eighteenth-century, and the impact of interdisciplinarity on historically informed performance practice.

 

Professional highlights

Scotland's Singing for Health Network: https://portal.rcs.ac.uk/scotland-singing-for-health-network/

Brianna joined the steering group for the AHRC-funded Claimed from Stationer's Hall project.

She was appointed Research Associate for the The Collected Works of Allan Ramsay AHRC-funded project: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/research/researchcentresandnetworks/robertburnsstudies/edinburghenlightenment/

Brianna is the research assistant, providing administrative support, for the Romantic National Song Network: https://rnsn.glasgow.ac.uk/.

She was elected to the British Society for Eighteenth-centuries board and is the Music Editor for BSECS Criticks: https://www.bsecs.org.uk/.

Teaching commitments

Module co-ordinator for Integrated Music Studies (History) BMus 1, Integrated Music Studies (History) BMus 2, Integrated Music Studies (History) BEd 1, Integrated Music Studies (History) BEd 2, Musicology, Musicology Research Project, Ensemble Musicians 1 & 2, and Performance Practice Throught the Ages.

Education

  • PhD, University of Glasgow

    Are we all castrati? Venanzio Rauzzini: ‘The father of a new style in English singing’

    1 Oct 2012 - 5 May 2016
  • MMus, University of Glasgow

    Historically Informed Performance Practice

    15 Sept 2011 - 16 Nov 2012
  • BMus, University of Glasgow

    Bachelor of Music (Honours) First Class

    15 Sept 2007 - 22 Jun 2011

Beyond the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland...