Helen English, AGSM, MPhil

Helen English is a Senior lecturer in music at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests are Australian music, music and social justice, gender and music and the sociology of music. Her creative work includes the soundscape The New Adventures of Mark Twain: from Coalopolis to Metropolis (New York, 2007) and performed soundscape Forgotten Composers of the Hunter Valley (Newcastle, 2013). Helen English is currently a PHD candidate in History and Sociology, researching music making in 1870s Newcastle, NSW. In 2013 she was invited to present a paper at the inaugural Newcastle/Hunter studies symposium. In 2015 she was awarded a prize for her PHD: Music as a Resource for World-Building in Newcastle and its Townships, 1869-1879 by the NSW Council of Women. Recent publications include a book chapter: “Musical Entertainment in Newcastle, NSW, 1875-1877” (2102) and articles “Re-Viewing history through sound – fact or fiction?” (2013), “Newcastle, NSW, in the 1870s: Audience Identity, Power and Cultural Ownership” (2013) and “Music Making in the Colonial City: Benefit Concerts in Newcastle, NSW in the 1870s”  (2014).