Dr Matt Lawson

Undergraduate:

• Understanding Music on Screen
• Songwriting, Film and Media Composition 1
• Work Experience
• Music Independent Study
• Advanced Musicology
• Music Project

Postgraduate:

• Advanced Musicology I: Film Music
• Research Skills
• Dissertation

Research grants and awards

• 2020: Departmental Funding (Ludo2020, Malta)
• 2019: Departmental Funding (RMA Conference, Manchester
• 2018: Travel bursary (Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation: Oxford)
• 2018: Departmental Funding (When the Music Takes Over conference, Salzburg, Austria)
• 2015: Music as Resistance to Genocide Workshop, Los Angeles, USA.
• 2015: Departmental Bursary (Music and Moving Image Conference, New York City)
• 2015: RMA Thurston Dart Research Grant (Music and Moving Image Conference, New York City)
• 2014: DAAD (Deutsche Akedemische Austauschdienst) Scholarship (Germany)
• 2014: EHRI (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure) Fellowship (Munich)
• 2014: Departmental Bursary (The Future of the Past, Melbourne)
• 2014: Postgraduate Research Bursary (The Future of the Past, Melbourne)
• 2014: German Historical Institute London (PhD Conference)
• 2013: SEMPRE Bursary (Music and Empathy Conference)
• 2013: Departmental Bursary (War and Displacement Conference)
• 2013: Postgraduate Research Bursary (RMA Research Student Conference)
• 2012-15: PhD/GTA Studentship (Edge Hill annual scholarship)
• 2012: George Heim Memorial Trust Grant (Music and Genocide Conference)
• 2012: Postgraduate Research Bursary (Music and Genocide Conference)
• 2011/12: Vinson Scholarship (York – MA)
• 2010-12: Orpheus Conference Assistantship (York – MA)
• 2010-12: Languages for All Scholarship (York – German Course)

Research projects

Current research project: Film Music and Trauma

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses for secondary school Music teachers in conjunction with the educational charity PTI.

Vice-Chair of MusicHE.

• May 2023: ‘Commonalaties and Contrasts in the Music of Middle-Earth on Screen’, Music and the Moving Image XIX, Steinhardt NYU, New York City, USA.
  March 2023: ‘Musical Exoticism and Cultural Appropriation in Depictions of the Non-Human in The Lord of the Rings Online‘, Ludo2023, University of Edinburgh.
  December 2022: ‘New sounds of a galaxy far, far away: inspirations, influences, and departures from John Williams in The Mandalorian (2019-), The Book of Boba Fett (2021), and Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)’, John Williams, dernier des symphonistes ?, Université d’Évry-Val-d’Essonne Paris-Saclay / Université de Versailles, France.
• September 2022: ‘“That sounds just like the film!”: Intertextuality, Inspiration, and Imitation in Video Game Adaptations of Films’, RMA Annual Conference, Durham.
• July 2022: Peak Television, ‘Off-Peak’ Scores: Establish the ‘peakness’ of music in Stranger Things (2016 – ), Tales From the Loop (2020), and Y: The Last Man (2021)’, Scoring Peak TV, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.
• July 2022: ‘The Traumantic Soundtrack: Film Music as Trauma and Traumatic Catharsis’, Music/Sound Through the Lens of Trauma, University of Utrecht, Netherlands.
• October 2021: ‘Seriously Funny Music: the use of “serious” music for comedic effect in film’, BARN Virtual Colloquia, online.
• June 2021: ‘Considering Hanns Eisler’s score to Nuit et Brouillard (1955)’, Sound on Screen I, Oxford Brookes University.
• April 2020: ‘Playing Trauma: the use of music to represent trauma and traumatic experience in video games’, Ludomusicology 2020, University of Malta, Valetta, Malta.
• September 2019: ‘Film Music and Trauma’, Royal Musical Association annual conference, RNCM/University of Manchester.
• June 2018: ‘The Boys are Back in Town: Scarborough Athletic, and the sounds of exile and homecoming’, Get some chalk on your boots! The sounding cultures of football, Oxford Brookes University.
• May 2018: ‘Three Germanies, One Holocaust: coming to terms with the past through film in East, West, and reunified Germany’, Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation, University of Oxford.
• March 2018: ‘Soundtracks of Sanctuary: Musical Numbers as Escapism in Holocaust Cinema’, When The Music Takes Over, University of Salzburg, Austria.
• September 2017: ‘Scoring the Holocaust: film music and the ethics of sentimentality’, Royal Musical Association annual conference, University of Liverpool.
• July 2016: ‘Music in German Holocaust cinema: politics and soundtracks in East, West and reunified Germany’, British Association for Holocaust Studies Annual Conference, UCL, London.
• October 2015: ‘The Resistant Soundtrack: the role of film music in promoting on-screen and offscreen resistance to genocide’, Music as Resistance to Genocide Workshop, USC SF Centre for Advanced Genocide Research, Los Angeles, USA.
• May 2015: ‘Soundtracks of Shame? The function of film music in German Holocaust cinema’, Music and the Moving Image X, Steinhardt NYU, New York City, USA.
• April 2015: ‘Film, Music, Politics: Composing for Holocaust Cinema in Germany’, The Holocaust and the Contemporary World, Krakow, Poland.
• April 2015: ‘“What’s with the music?!” Incongruous Film Music and the Subversion of Audience Expectation’, Cutting Edge Postgraduate Conference, Edge Hill University.
• September 2014: ‘The Music of Middle-Earth: Musical Representations of a Fictional World’, Music and Movies: National and Transnational Approaches, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
• July 2014: Invited panellist, Passenger (1963) screening, Melbourne, Australia.
• July 2014: ‘Film music as Holocaust memorialisation in the 21st Century’, The Future of the Past: Representing the Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Trauma in the 21st Century, Deakin University and the Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne, Australia
• March 2014: ‘The Jew Scored – The representation of Jewishness in German Holocaust film music’, Cutting Edge Postgraduate Conference, Edge Hill University.
• February 2014: ‘Film Music as Holocaust memorialisation since 1980’, Memory in Post-1980s Music, University of York.
• January 2014: ‘Holocaust film music in Germany: issues and theories’, PhD Conference, German Historical Institute, London.
• January 2014: ‘Wiedergutmachung durch Filmmusik: The German film soundtrack and its role in coming to terms with the past’, RMA Research Students Conference, University of Birmingham.
• November 2013: ‘Ethics and Empathy in Holocaust film music’, SEMPRE Music and Empathy Study Day, University of Hull.
• June 2013: ‘Scoring the Holocaust’, Ethnicity, Race and Racism Symposium, Edge Hill University.
• May 2013: ‘Film Music and the Holocaust’, War and Displacement Conference, Fremdspracheninstitut der Stadt München, Munich, Germany.
• January 2013: ‘Hearing Atrocity’, Screening Atrocity Postgraduate Workshop, Newcastle University.
• January 2013: ‘Scoring the Holocaust’, RMA Research Students Conference, University of Southampton.
• November 2012 : ‘Scoring the Holocaust: issues of musical representation in Holocaust film’, Music and Genocide Conference, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
• June 2012: ‘Scoring the Holocaust: an introduction to issues of musical representation’, 3rd Postgraduate Symposium, Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York.

Personal website: https://www.mattlawson.co.uk