Miriam El Abbassi | Arts Editor
Featured Image: York faculty member, and trained musician, Dorothy de Val, will be holding a free concert on November 7. | Courtesy of Pixabay
York faculty member, and trained musician, Dorothy de Val, will be holding a free concert today November 7, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., full of original music and complimenting instrumental pieces, performed by other members of the York faculty.
“Dorothy de Val is a musicologist and pianist whose research interests include Scots Gaelic song, the first English folksong revival, pianos and pianism, and Haydn reception in England,” reads the concert description on the AMPD website. The focus of her research includes the creators of folk music of the early 20th-century, as well as the creators of Gaelic music.
De Val is also the author of In Search of Song: The Life and Times of Lucy Broadwood, published by Ashgate in July 2011, as well as a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and many other publications including The Haydn Companion, and is a regular reviewer for the journal Music and Letters.
“Professor de Val’s research extends into the field of dance, focusing on English social dance and Morris dance. She co-organized a conference at York on English country dance in the summer of 2010, and performs regularly as pianist for English country dances with her group, Playford’s Pleasure,” continues the description. De Val’s most recent project involves performing music from Jane Austen’s own collection, featuring composers such as Pleyel, Sterkel, Storace and Kotzwara.
De Val has taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Oxford Brookes University and the University of Oxford, and has served as assistant curator of musical instruments at the Royal College of Music. She joined York’s Department of Music in 1999 and served as Associate Dean in the Faculty of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2007, and as Graduate Program Director in Dance from 2009 to 2011.
De Val and the other faculty members, (Paula Arciniega, Susanna McCleary, Anne Lederman, Kye Marshall, Patricia Wait, Barbara Ackerman) will be holding their performance in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, room 112 in the Accolade East Building.
