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. 

His books and edited collections include Music and Narrative since 1900, Zbigniew Preisner’s ‘Three Colors’ Trilogy: A Film Score Guide, Lutosławski’s Worlds, The Palgrave Handbook to Music and Sound in Peak TV, 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, Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Perspectives, and Constructing Polish Musical Identities outside Poland since 1880: Sounding Polish. He is currently co-editor of the journal Music, Sound, and the Moving Image and a series editor for the Palgrave Studies in Television Music and Sound.

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.

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 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), Scoring Peak TV (RNCM), and the joint conference/symposium Sound on Screen V/Re-sounding visions: Music, Sound, and the Moving Image at 20 (RNCM).

As Head of Undergraduate Programmes at the RNCM, Nick leads the development and delivery of the College’s Undergraduate Curricula and Programmes. He contributes teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, supervises research students, and pursues his own musicological research. He joined the RNCM from Keele University in May 2018, where he lectured from 2005. 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:

• essay on peak TV for OUP television handbook
• essay on Lutosławski, music and trauma for OUP trauma handbook
• coordinating the international conference and symposium Sound on Screen V/Re-sounding Visions: Music, Sound, and the Moving Image at 20 (90+ papers)
• co-editing Music, Sound, and the Moving Image and The Palgrave Studies in Television Music and Sound.