Adam leads the pedagogy curriculum for BMus 1–3, and teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum at RBC, including managing aspects of external placement work.
In 2019, Adam was awarded the 2019 Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellowship in Music at the Bodleian Library (Oxford). As part of this he worked in the Bodleian special collections to complete archival research on historical music theory texts, focusing specifically on their approach to musical examples.
Adam is currently a co-investigator on the AHRC Network ‘Representing Classical Music in the 21 st Century’. He is currently co-editing a collection of essays emerging from this network for the Open Library of Humanities.
Adam is also currently engaged in a range of research projects exploring the work of music education hubs around the country, with a particular focus on Whole Class Ensemble Teaching. He continues to research the apparent decline in A-level music provision, considering what impacts this may have for transitions into higher education.
He also co-leads the Representations of Early Music on Stage and Screen study group (REMOSS), which is hosted at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He recently acted as co- editor (with Dr James Cook and Dr Alexander Kolassa) for a collected volume of essays Recomposing the Past: Representations of Early Music on Stage and Screen, and regularly gives talks on historical musicology.
PhD in Music
PGCert
BA (Hons) – Music
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Adam leads the pedagogy curriculum for BMus 1–3, and teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum at RBC. His current modules include:
- BMus 1: Community Engagement
- BMus 2: Pedagogy and Practice
- BMus 3: Work Placement/Pedagogy Placement
- BMus 4: Music, Community and Wellbeing
- MMus: Lecture Recital
Adam currently supervises masters and doctoral students across musicology and music education. He is always interested to hear from prospective students interested in exploring related areas of research.
Selected Publications
Journal articles
2021 - Jacqueline du Pré as The Cellist, Representing Classical Music in 21st Century: Open Library of Humanities Special Collection (forthcoming)
2021 - Teacher perceptions of A-level music: Tension, dilemmas and decline. British Journal of Music Education, 1-15. DOI:10.1017/S0265051720000352
2019 - Fautley, Kinsella, Whittaker, ‘Models of teaching and learning identified in Whole Class Ensemble Tuition’, British Journal of Music Education, 36/3, pp. 243–252.
2019 - Tinctoris and signa congruentiae: a new perspective, Early Music History, Vol. 39 (2019), pp. 269–303. DOI: 10.1017/S0261127919000056
2018 - Investigating the canon in A-Level music: Musical prescription in A-level music syllabuses (for first examination in 2018), British Journal of Music Education. DOI:10.1017/S0265051718000256
2017 - Signposting Mutation in some Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Music Theory Treatises, Plainsong & Medieval Music, 26/1 (2017), pp. 37–61. DOI: 10.1017/S0961137116000097
Book Chapters
2021 - ‘Reading Tinctoris’s Readers: Hints at Musical Reading Practices in Johannes Tinctoris’s Notational Treatises’, in Johannes Tinctoris and Music Theory in the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, ed. Ronald Woodley, Jeffrey J. Dean, and Christian Goursaud (Épitome musical; Turnhout: Brepols, 2021)
2018 - Dividing the Sacred and Secular: A View Through the Hunchback, in Recomposing the Past: Representations of Music on Stage and Screen, ed. Adam Whittaker, James Cook, and Alexander Kolassa (Routledge, 2018), pp. 89–106
2018 - A plague of medievalism on you all: music, medievalism and the plague’, Studies in Medievalism XXVII: Authenticity, Medievalism, Music
2018 - Whittaker, Cook, Kolassa, ‘Introduction’, in Recomposing the Past: Representations of Music on Stage and Screen, ed. Adam Whittaker, James Cook, and Alexander Kolassa (Routledge, 2018), pp. 1–14.
2018 - Whittaker, Cook, Kolassa, ‘Music in Fantasy Pasts: Neomedievalism and Game of Thrones’, in Recomposing the Past: Representations of Music on Stage and Screen, ed. Adam Whittaker, James Cook, and Alexander Kolassa (Routledge, 2018), pp. 229–250.
Reports
2019 - Whittaker, Fautley, Kinsella, Anderson, Geographical and social demographic trends of A-level music students, published by Royal College of Music, May 2019:
http://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/502/
2019 - Kinsella, Fautley, Whittaker, Exchanging Notes: Full Research Report, published by Youth Music, May 2019:
https://network.youthmusic.org.uk/sites/default/files/Exchanging%20Notes%20Research%20Report%20May%202019.pdf
2018 - Fautley & Whittaker, Key Data on Music Education Hubs 2017, published by Department for Education and Arts Council England in October 2018:
https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/KeyDataOnMusicEducationHubs2017_0.pdf
Editing
2021 - Representing Classical Music in 21st Century: Special Issue of the Open Library of Humanities, ed. Adrian Curtin and Adam Whittaker (OLH, 2021)
2018 - Recomposing the Past: Representations of Music on Stage and Screen, ed. James Cook, Alexander Kolassa, and Adam Whittaker (Routledge, 2018)
Adam works with Arts Council England on the annual national analysis of Music Education Hub data returns, and has acted on a team of evaluators for a range of music education organisations such as Youth Music, Sound and Music, and Birmingham Music Service.
