Nicholas Reyland

Professor Nicholas Reyland is a musicologist with expertise in film / TV music and sound, Polish music (especially Witold Lutosławski), and – more broadly – the theory, analysis, and criticism of music since 1900. As a student, he trained as a musicologist, composer, and trumpet / cornet player at Surrey, the Royal College of Music, and Cardiff.

His books and edited collections include Music and Narrative since 1900, Zbigniew Preisner’s ‘Three Colors’ Trilogy: A Film Score Guide, Lutosławski’s Worlds, Music, Analysis and the Body and a special issue of Music Analysis dedicated to film music. His essays have appeared in major journals including Music Analysis, Music & Letters, Music, Sound and the Moving Image and Twentieth-Century Music, and collections such as the Palgrave Handbook of Sound Design and Music in Screen Media, The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound, and Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Perspectives. An AHRC Fellowship in 2015 developed an international research project on Lutosławski, culminating in the Lutosławski’s Worlds collection. Joint-winner of the 2007 Westrup Prize from Music & Letters, his co-edited collection Music, Analysis, and the Body was shortlisted for two Society of Music Theory prizes. He is co-editor of the journal Music, Sound, and the Moving Image.

Nick has given keynote lectures and invited research seminars at prestigious institutions including Cornell University, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, and the Institute for Musical Research, as well as papers at conferences throughout the UK and world. He has been interviewed for BBC Radio 3’s Music Matters and Composer of the Week, appeared as a pre-concert speaker at the BBC Proms, written essays for the Philharmonia, Proms, BBC orchestras, Rambert dance company, and The Guardian, and presented at Royal Festival Hall study days and Hallé pre-concert events. He has served on the editorial boards of Music Theory Online, Muzyka, Twentieth-Century Music, and Music Analysis, and organised conferences including the Music Analysis Conference (KeeleMAC), the International Conference on Music since 1900 (ICMSN), and Scoring Peak TV (RNCM). He joined the RNCM from Keele University in May 2018. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

• Screen music studies (film and television music and sound design)
• Polish music, especially Witold Lutosławski and Zbigniew Preisner
• Music and narrative
• Music and trauma
• Theory, analysis and criticism of music since 1900 (classical, popular, screen)

Nick's current research includes a series of essays on music in recent television music and sound design, on Lutosławski and trauma, and on media representations of Polishness in The Wire, as well as co-editing the series Palgrave Studies of Television Music and Sound.