As part of its contribution to the 150th-anniversary celebrations of the Royal Musical Association, the RMA Publications Committee has commissioned a group of audio dialogues, in which pairs of people with a connection to the Association reflect on an aspect of their personal experience of the Association, consider key events or developments to which they have contributed, and also look ahead to the possibilities for the RMA’s future. The resulting portfolio of recordings, made between Autumn 2023 and Summer 2024, forms the RMA Time Capsule.

The portfolio is intended to demonstrate a range of contrasting perspectives on the RMA and its membership, including contributions from:

• Members who have researched the origins and history of the RMA
• Members who have held key positions within the Association over recent decades, including on its Council, Subcommittees and journals
• Members from contrasting subdisciplines within Music Studies
• Members with experience of how the RMA has responded and is responding to the changing nature of musicology as a discipline
• Members from different generations whose experience of the RMA spans some 50 years
• Members of equivalent societies from other parts of the world with links to the RMA

We have sought to ensure that the collection reflects the diversity of the RMA’s membership, and its disciplinary reach, in line with the RMA Council’s stated commitment to Equality and Diversity.

The dialogues have been curated and edited by Prof. Rebecca Herissone, current Chair of the RMA Publications Committee. Each dialogue is introduced by a brief written summary, with a link to an mp3 audio file, together with a written transcript of the conversation. Transcripts have been edited, but are intended as a largely verbatim record of the dialogue, so readers are asked to make allowances for the fact that these are planned but unscripted conversations! We think the Time Capsule provides a fascinating snapshot of the RMA at 150, seen from contrasting perspectives, but highlighting shared conceptions of its role in encouraging its newest members, particularly its younger researchers; its efforts to foster links with other musicological societies internationally; and the developing identity of the organisation today, as it seeks to achieve its key objectives – to encompass Music Studies in the broadest sense, and to make its membership and activities more representative of the diversity of the field and its researchers.

Dr Leanne Langley and Prof. Sarah Collins 

In advance of the publication of her forthcoming monograph, The Royal Musical Association: Creating Scholars, Advancing Research (Boydell and Brewer, December 2024), the historian Leanne Langley talks with Sarah Collins (University of Western Australia) about the inception and early history of the RMA, its place within the context of the development of musicology as a discipline, and what the Association has meant to them both as scholars of British music culture in the late-19th and 20th centuries.

Prof. Mark Everist and Prof. Simon McVeigh

Two former Presidents of the RMA, Mark Everist (University of Southampton; President 2011–17) and Simon McVeigh (Goldsmiths, University of London; President 2018–20) reflect on how they sought to develop the RMA’s strategic priorities during their respective terms. They focus particularly on their efforts to broaden the association’s disciplinary remit to encompass practice-based research more wholeheartedly, and to foster closer links with related musicological organisations, reflecting on how the identity and activities of the RMA have evolved as a result of these changes.

Prof. Nicholas Cook and Dr Freya Jarman

Prof. Nick Cook (University of Cambridge) and Dr Freya Jarman (University of Liverpool) reflect on their respective experiences as past and present editors of JRMA, and on the changing nature of the journal – Nick’s editorial duties ran from 1999, when he took over from Andrew Wathey, to 2004, when he was succeeded by Katharine Ellis, while Freya took over from Laura Tunbridge in 2018.

Prof. Sarah Hibberd and Dr Genevieve Arkle

Prof. Sarah Hibberd and Dr Genevieve Arkle, who are colleagues in the Music Department at the University of Bristol, consider their respective experiences as members of the RMA Council and its various subcommittees, and the way these reflect the substantial changes in the RMA’s membership and goals that have occurred in the 20 years since Sarah began her first term on council in 2004.

Dr Jonathan Hicks and Ms Mollie Carlyle

Now Lecturer in Music at the University of Aberdeen, Jonathan (Jo) Hicks was a Junior Student Representative on the RMA Council from 2009–10, while studying for his DPhil at Oxford. In this recording, he discusses the role with current Student Rep and Aberdeen PhD student, Mollie Carlyle, comparing the similarities in their experiences, examining ways in which the role has changed over the past 15 years, as well as what this has taught them about the Association’s evolving priorities and emphases, and reflecting on what representing the RMA’s youngest members on Council has meant to them. At the time of recording, in Autumn 2023, Mollie was Junior Student Rep on the RMA Council, but she has since taken up the role of Senior Rep.

Prof. Laudan Nooshin and Prof. Rachel Cowgill

Reflecting on the contrasting ways in which they initially became involved with the RMA, and the multiple roles they have both undertaken within the Association, Laudan Nooshin (City University, London) and Rachel Cowgill (York University) consider how joint initiatives that have brought the RMA together with related groups – particularly the British Forum for Ethnomusicology – have encouraged the breaking down of barriers that have traditionally separated different subdisciplines within Music Studies. Focusing in particular on the period from the mid 1990s onwards, when critical musicology had begun to encourage a more holistic approach to musicological method, they discuss how events such as the joint RMA–BFE Research Students’ conference encourage members to interact and learn from one another’s approaches. They conclude by considering the broader implications for the identity of the RMA, and how the fresh perspectives of the young scholars coming up through the Research Students’ conference promise a healthy future for the Association.

Dr Scott McLaughlin and Prof. Mieko Kanno 

Violinist Prof. Mieko Kanno (Sibelius Academy, Uniarts, Helsinki) and composer Dr Scott McLaughlin (University of Leeds) discuss the range of initiatives the RMA has undertaken in recent years to encourage practice research in music, to facilitate discussion among practice researchers to help define the field and develop its processes, and to ensure it is recognised, both within the RMA, including through the creation of the Practice Research Prize, and within the discipline of Music Studies in the UK more broadly. Both have been directly involved in these initiatives, in Kanno’s case as a former member of the RMA Council, and for McLaughlin as leader of the RMA’s Practice Research Study Group.

Prof. Warwick Edwards and Dr Eva Moreda Rodriguez

University of Glasgow colleagues Warwick Edwards and Eva Moreda Rodriguez have both been members of the RMA since they were postgraduate students – in the 1960s for Warwick and the mid-2000s for Eva – and have been involved with the Association in many different capacities, as student and ordinary members, council and committee members, respective Chairs of the Scottish Chapter, and in Eva’s case as a current co-editor of the Research Chronicle. Here they take a cross-generational perspective on the RMA’s capacity for change as we enter a challenging time for research in the arts, in which the Association has an important part to play in both the preservation of the discipline and in its development.

Prof. Jan Smaczny and Prof. John O’Flynn

Jan Smaczny (Queens’ University, Belfast) and John O’Flynn (Dublin City University) are both former Presidents of the Society for Musicology in Ireland: Jan served two terms from 2006–12 and John is the most recent past President, having stepped down in 2024. In this conversation, they discuss how the foundation of the SMI in 2003 grew out of its origins as the Irish Chapter of the RMA, and consider the continuing close links between the two organisations. The discussion assesses the many parallels in the RMA’s and SMI’s aims and priorities – particularly their shared emphasis on accommodating the widening scope of Music Studies as a discipline, as well as initiatives both groups are undertaking to tackle inequalities, and enable them better to represent the diversity of the discipline and its researchers. As well as comparing and contrasting the two groups’ activities in supporting research in music, Jan and John reminisce about joint enterprises, including the combined RMA–SMI conference held in Dublin in 2009.

Dr Barbara Gentili and Dr Carlo Cenciarelli

Barbara Gentili (University of Surrey) and Carlo Cenciarelli (Cardiff University) discuss their experiences of getting involved with the RMA when they came to the UK from Europe. They consider its influence on their early career development, and how they feel they have benefited from the intellectual stimulation, social interactions and encouragement from more senior members that they have experienced as members – particularly by attending RMA conferences and events. Comparing these experiences with those they have had in equivalent European contexts, they also discuss how the Association reflects and influences the shape of UK musicology.  

Dr Lola San Martín Arbide and Prof. Natasha Loges

Beginning with reminiscences of their first meeting at the RMA Annual Conference in Manchester in 2019, Lola San Martín Arbide (University of Seville) and Natasha Loges (Freiburg University of Music) discuss how today’s RMA seeks to break down boundaries. Both speak as scholars who have been based in the UK but now hold positions in European institutions, and they reflect on the RMA’s focus on building bridges with its European counterparts and its emphasis on both national and international perspectives on musicology. They also consider their personal experiences of being made to feel welcome and included at RMA events and ways they have benefited from the opportunities for collaboration that the RMA has opened for them, as well as the association’s consciously holistic approach to developing music scholarship in all its contexts.