Helen Roberts

United Kingdom °1981
research interests: historically informed performance, musicology, Music pedagogy, digital and personal technologies
affiliation: Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
en

Helen is a professional cornettist, researcher and teacher whose research encompasses aspects of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century performance practice, improvised and unwritten repertoires, music in worship, social and political influences on musical traditions, and transmission and reception of continental thought and theory in seventeenth-century England. Helen is a postdoctoral research fellow at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Managing Editor of Septenary Editions, and a member of His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts.

research

research expositions

  • Reconstructing Verses by Henry Loosemore and John Coprario (2020) author(s): Helen Roberts published in: Research Catalogue, Birmingham City University: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media
    This exposition comprises a package of outputs from practice-led research around two unique pieces of instrumental music with winds from early seventeenth-century England. Along with the first critical performance edition and a world premiere recording of these two pieces, I present a detailed discussion of the investigation which informed the editorial process, focussing on three historical artefacts: MS Drexel 5469, the fragmentary source of the music in question; the Christ Church cornetts, two original instruments that may historically have been associated with performance of this type of repertoire; and the St Teilo organ, an instrument reconstructed after Tudor archaeological evidence and representative of the style of instrument in use when MS Drexel 5469 was compiled. I examine each artefact in turn, establishing the wider historical context of each and assessing the connections between all three. This process has not only shed new light on two pieces overlooked by historical performers until now, but raised important questions surrounding the performance of early-seventeenth century liturgical music in general.
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  • Aural Histories: Coventry 1451-1642 (last edited: 2024) author(s): Helen Roberts, Jamie Savan connected to: Aural Histories: Coventry, c.1451-1642 This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
    Website of the AHRC-funded project Aural Histories: Coventry 1451-1642 hosted by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
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