Kate Guthrie

My research focuses on the relationship between music, politics and cultural values in mid-twentieth-century Britain. I am interested how composers, musicians and critics negotiated the perceived threat that the rise of mass culture and increased demands for democracy posed to traditional distinctions between high and low culture. While my PhD thesis pursues these themes in a study of music-making in London during World War Two and its immediate aftermath, my post-doctoral monograph project will explore initiatives to democratise elite culture in interwar Britain.

I am also interested in the relationship between theories of modernism, displacement studies and displaced composers, a topic that was the subject of my Masters thesis on émigré composer Arthur Willner.  Since coming to King's, I have also begun to explore film music, especially the question of how music contributes to the construction of star identities.

I am final-year doctoral student at King's College London, working on an AHRC-funded thesis entitled 'Between the Brows: Music and Cultural Values in 1940s London'. Prior to joining King's, I studied for my BA(Hons) and MPhil at the University of Cambridge. During my MPhil, I was a recipient of the RMA Goldsborough Student Research Grant. 

During my postgraduate studies, I have presented at national and international conferences, including Music Since Nineteen Hundred (Liverpool, 2013) and the North American British Music Studies Association Biennial Conference (Chicago, 2012). In September 2012 I also co-convened and presented at an international conference on Music and Politics in Britain and Italy, 1933-1968, which was supported by grants from the KCL Music Department and the KCL Arts and Humanities Research Institute (London, 2012). From January 2011 to January 2013 I served as Student Representative for the Royal Musical Association.

My publications include an article forthcoming with the Journal of the Royal Musical Association and a Review-Article in Music and Letters.