Natalie Mason

Thesis title:

International and intercultural music-making with children and families in the West Midlands: routes from community to classroom and beyond

Research Area

Music

Publications

Mason, Natalie and Cara Stacey (2019) 'Composing, Creative Play and the Ethical Incomplete: Practice-Based Approaches in Ethnomusicology'. SAMUS 38
Mason, Natalie (2019) Book review - Davida, Gabriels, Hudon and Pronovost, eds. Curating Live Arts: Critical Perspectives, Essays, and Conversations on Theory and Practice. 'Book Notes' in Yearbook for Traditional Music 51
Mason, Natalie (2016) 'The Edge Suite'. In Insights into Collaborative Practice by Artists on the Edge. Birmingham: ARTicle Press
Mason, Natalie and Cara Stacey (2012) Website review - The South African Music Archive Project (SAMAP). The World of Music 1 (2)

Conferences

October 2024: Presented paper 'The Convivial Classroom: children's diasporic music-making and familial learning in Birmingham, England' at Society for Ethnomusicology 2024 Annual Meeting

August 2024: Presented at Music and Heritage Mini Conference at University of Birmingham

October 2023: Presented at Trinity Laban Postgraduate Research in Music Education Symposium

April 2022: Presented at British Forum for Ethnomusicology annual conference at Open University, Milton Keynes

January 2022: Presented paper in 'Musical Ethnography' session at British Forum for Ethnomusicology / Royal Musical Association Research Students Conference

June 2021: Presented in research relay at Midlands4Cities research festival

May 2021: Chaired and presented poster at University of Birmingham School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music research conference

April 2021: Presented poster at Midlands Music Research Network conference

March 2021: Presented poster at European Association for Music in Schools conference as part of Doctoral Student Forum

November 2020: Guest lecture on community music practice for students at North-West University, South Africa

Public Engagement & Impact

This research is inspired by fifteen years of community music work in the UK and South Africa. Since 2015 I have been Creative Director of the 'Multicultural Music Making' programme (MMM) in partnership with Friction Arts, working with children and families in Birmingham, the Black Country and Telford. The MMM programme is a member of the Birmingham Music Education Hub (BMEH) and provides community music education opportunities and creative intercultural space for school pupils, plus training opportunities for musicians and teachers. I feel this research will immediately benefit my ongoing work with MMM, and extend the reach of this work more broadly, with the potential to impact music education policy and curriculum design.

Other Research Interests

Ethnomusicology
Music Education
Community Music
Applied Ethnomusicology
Education
Practice-based research
Culture Studies

Memberships

Birmingham Music Education Hub (BMEH)
Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM)
British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE)
Sound Sense
Peer reviewer for British Journal of Music Education (BJME)

Awards

British Forum for Ethnomusicology Fieldwork Award Winner 2021

Placements

August - October 2024: Internship with Royal Shakespeare Company and Cultural Learning Alliance completing a Rapid Evidence Review on the Benefits of Music Education

Research Summary

My research explores intercultural music-making with children and families in the West Midlands area of England. I work at the interface of an interdisciplinary area between ethnomusicology, music education and community music. As part of my doctoral research I completed ethnographic fieldwork in the West Midlands during 2021-2 which included participant-observation of diasporic music-making in communities and facilitated music sessions with children and families. I hope to contribute to the sustainability of intercultural music-making and pedagogical innovations while creating important primary research into a little documented field of music practice(s) in this region.