Dr Alison Garnham

Research Associate: AHRC Project Music, Migration and Mobility

Dr Alison Garnham joined the Royal College of Music’s Music, Migration and Mobility project in 2022.

She is a cultural historian specialising in music in Britain during the mid-twentieth century; her particular interests lie in the history of music broadcasting and the BBC’s role in British musical life, the influence on British culture of central European émigrés, and post-war ideas around musical nationality.

She has previously held visiting research posts at Goldsmiths and King’s Colleges in the University of London, and the University of Cambridge, where she was the founding archivist of the Hans Keller Archive when it was established at Cambridge University Library in 1996. She also chairs the Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust.

Selected publications

Garnham AM (2022), Britten and the radio, in VP Stroeher & J Vickers (eds.) Benjamin Britten in Context (pp. 78-85), Cambridge University Press [DOI].

Garnham AM & Woodhouse S (2019), Hans Keller 1919-1985: A Musician in Dialogue with his Times, Routledge [ISBN 9780754608981].

Garnham AM (2017), The first international concert season of the European Broadcasting Union, Musical Times, 158 (1940), 7-17 [LINK].

Wintle C & Garnham AM (eds.) (2013), Hans Keller: Benjamin Britten: The Musical Character and Other Writing, Plumbago Books [ISBN: 978-0-9566007-4-5]. Includes authored section Britten and Keller: letters and life (pp. 223-316).

Garnham AM (2011), Hans Keller and Internment: the Development of an Emigré Musician 1938-48, Plumbago Books [ISBN 9780955608773].

Garnham AM (2007), The BBC in possession, 1945-59, in J Doctor, DCH Wright & N Kenyon (eds.), The Proms: A New History (pp. 130-167), Thames and Hudson [ISBN 9780500513521].

Garnham AM (2003), Hans Keller and the BBC: The Musical Conscience of British Broadcasting 1959-1979, Ashgate Publishing, reissued by Routledge in 2017 [ISBN 9781138721838].

Garnham AM (1998), Book review: Hans Keller: Essays on Music by C. Wintle, Music Analysis, 17 (1), 79-91 [DOI].

Faculties / departments: Research