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DR SOPHIE REDFERN

Sophie is a music historian who combines formal positions in academia and the arts with freelance writing and speaking on classical music.

Since 2022 she has been Lecturer in Music at King's College London and Tutor for the Open College of the Arts. She has previously held positions at the University of Nottingham, University of Sheffield, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and Liverpool Hope University.

As a researcher, Sophie specialises in twentieth-century music and dance. Her first book, Bernstein and Robbins: The Early Ballets, was published in 2021 as part of the Eastman Studies in Music series and named a 2022 CHOICE 'Outstanding Academic Title'. It was released in paperback in 2023. In recent years she has also contributed to The Cambridge History of Music Criticism, The Cambridge Stravinsky Encyclopedia, and written on the relationship between Bernstein and Copland for Leonard Bernstein in Context. She is currently working on articles related to American Ballet Theatre's 1946 London tour and the set designers Jo Mielziner and Oliver Smith.

Outside of teaching and research she is the European Opera Centre's Curator. This role has seen her lead the Centre’s adult opera education series, The Audland Talks, and train animateurs for the Centre's learning programme based on Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen. She has also been involved in opera productions, including as Dramaturg for a project featuring the music of Ernst Toch and Hanns Eisler at the Nationaltheater Mannheim.

 

​A common thread across all her work is a commitment to engaging audiences and sharing knowledge and research. She writes programme notes for leading organisations and has given talks on a broad range of subjects. She has been a guest expert for BBC Radio 3's Opera on 3 and Proms coverage.

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