Simon Zagorski-Thomas

Professor Simon Zagorski-Thomas

Course Leader - MA Record Production
Professor of Music
PhD / DMus supervisor
London College of Music
simon.zagorski-thomas@uwl.ac.uk

Simon Zagorski-Thomas is Professor of Music at the London College of Music, University of West London, co-chair of the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production and a Director of the Art of Record Production Conference. He is also founder and convenor of the 21st Century Music Practice Research Network. He is frequently called upon as a media commentator on pop music culture by a range of outlets including Sky News.

He worked for 25 years as a composer, sound engineer and producer and is, at present, conducting research into 21st century music practice and the musicology of record production.  In 2015 he was the Principle Investigator in the AHRC funded Classical Music Hyper-Production and Practice As Research project and in 2012 he was awarded a visiting fellowship at the University of Cambridge and was the Principle Investigator in the AHRC funded network on Performance in the Recording Studio. His book on The Art of Record Production, which he co-edited with Simon Frith, was published by Ashgate Press in 2012 and his monograph on the Musicology of Record Production for Cambridge University Press was published in 2014 and won the IASPM Book Prize in 2015.

Funded research projects

  • (2015) Principle Investigator on the AHRC Classical Music Hyper-Production project
  • (2012 - 2013) Principal Investigator on the AHRC Research Network into Performance in the Studio
  • (2012) Visiting Research Fellow, University of Cambridge’s AHRC project on Contemporary Musical Performance as Creative Practice

  • Qualifications

    BA Economics and Artificial Intelligence (Sussex University), PhD Studio Based Composition (Goldsmiths, University of London)

  • Memberships

    Convenor of the 21st Century Music Practice Research Network
    Chairman of the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
    Arts & Humanities Research Council – Peer Review College
    International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM)
    Music Research Consortium - UK
    The Audio Engineering Society (AES)

Teaching

I am a Professor of Music at LCM, co-chair of the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production and a director of the Art of Record Production Conference. I specialise in record production and lead several initiatives to develop new research into 21st century music practices. My career before academia spanned 25-years of record production, sound recording, composition and songwriting.

Research

  • Research and publications

    Forthcoming publications

    Zagorski-Thomas, S & Henson, D. (Forthcoming 2018) Setting the agenda: the theory of popular music practice; Chapter in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Education. Edited by Zack Moir, Bryan Powell and Gareth Dylan-Smith; New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (Forthcoming 2018) Analysing the Product of Recorded Musical Activity; Chapter in Analyzing Popular Music; Edited by Kenneth Smith and Ciro Scotto; Oxford: Routledge Press

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (Forthcoming 2018) Timbre As Text: the cognitive roots of intertextuality. Chapter in The Pop Palimpsest: Intertextuality in Recorded Popular Music. Edited by Lori Burns and Serge Lacasse. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (Forthcoming 2018) Directions in music by Miles Davis: using the ecological approach to perception and embodied cognition to analyse the creative use of recording technology in Bitches Brew. Technology and Culture.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (Forthcoming 2018) The Spectromorphology Of Recorded Popular Music: the shaping of sonic cartoons through record production. In Fink, R, Latour O’Brien, M and Wallmark, Z. The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music. Oxford University Press

    Book and book chapters

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2016) Sonic Cartoons. In H. Schulze, & J. Papenburg, eds. Sound as Popular Culture. MIT Press.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2016) How Is Theoretical Research Meeting The Challenges of Pedagogy In The Field Of Record Production? In King, A. and Himonides eds, E. Music, Technology and Education: Critical Perspectives. Ashgate Press.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2015) An Analysis of Space, Gesture and Interaction in Kings of Leon’s 'Sex On Fire' (2008). In R. von Appen et al., eds. Twenty-First-Century Pop Music Analyses: Methods, Models, Debates. Ashgate Press.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2014) The Musicology of Record Production; Cambridge University Press. (winner of the 2015 IASPM Book Prize)

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. & Frith, S. (eds.) (2012) The Art of Record Production: an introductory reader for a new academic field, Ashgate Press.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2010) Real and Unreal Performances. In Danielsen, A. (2010) Rhythm In The Age of Digital Reproduction, Ashgate Press.

    Journal articles

    Zagorski-Thomas, S & Bourbon, A. (2017) The ecological approach to mixing audio: agency, activity and environment in the process of audio staging. Journal on the Art of Record Production, 11.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S & Capulet, E. (2017) Creating a rubato layer cake: performing and producing overdubs with expressive timing on a classical recording for solo piano. Journal on the Art of Record Production, 11.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S (2016) The influence of recording technology and practice on popular music performance in the recording studio in Poland between 1960 and 1989. Polish Sociological Review, 2016 (196).

    Zagorski-Thomas, S (2013) Guest editor of a special edition of Dancecult journal on ‘Production Technologies and Studio Practice’.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2012) Musical Meaning and the Musicology of Record Production, Beitraege zur Popularmusikforschung (Vol.38), Bielefeld.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2010) The Stadium In The Bedroom: functional staging, authenticity and the audience led aesthetic in record production, Popular Music Journal 29(2).

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2008) The Musicology of Record Production, 20th Century Music 4(2).

  • Conferences

    Conference presentations and/or papers

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2008) The Medium In The Message: Phonographic staging techniques that utilize the sonic characteristics of reproduction media. Peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Art of Record Production Conference, University of Massachusetts Lowell.

    Zagorski-Thomas, S. (2007) Gesturing Producers and Scratching Musicians. Peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Art of Record Production Conference; Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

    Recent guest lectures

    University of Aalborg (Denmark)
    Bogota School of Audio Engineering, 
    University of Chicago
    University of Copenhagen
    University of Curitiba (Brazil)
    Deutsch Pop (Berlin)
    Drexel University (Philadelphia)
    University of Edinburgh
    University of Falun (Sweden)
    Harvard University
    Instituto Technico Metropolitano Medellin (Colombia)
    Jacksonville University (Florida)
    University of Los Andes (Colombia)
    University of Massachusetts Lowell
    University of Michigan Ann Arbor
    Mid Tennessee State University
    New York University
    Pop Akademie (Mannheim)
    University of Rio Di Janeiro
    Royal Academy of Music
    Royal College of Music (Stockholm)
    Rowan University (New Jersey)
    York University

  • Research degree supervision

    Principal Supervisor

    The digital audio workstation as a mediator of the electronic music production process. (James Bell)

    How can Actor-Network-Theory and Ecological Approach to Perception be used to analyse creative mixing practice? (Yongju Lee)

    Performance in the Grime Studio: How it’s done in the ‘Endz’. Creative interactions in the collaborative composition of contemporary UK hip hop in London. (Caroline Russell)

    How recording studios used technology to invoke the psychedelic experience: The difference in staging techniques in British and American recordings in the late 1960s. (Anthony Meynell) - awarded July 2017

    The Embodied Feminine and the Sensory Self: Cross-disciplinary practice exploring the feminine ideal through sensors, transposition, metaphorical tools, embedded technology, performance, and composition. (Susan Thomason) - awarded May 2019

    The role of gesture and non-verbal communication in popular music performance, and its application to curriculum and pedagogy. (Liz Pipe) - awarded August 2018

    Secondary Supervisor

    Strategies for use of Modular Synthesisers as Agents of Music Creation. (Nino Auricchio)

    Development of Compositional Methods Based on Sound/Noise as a Public/Private expression. (Jose Cubides Gutierrez)

    3D Audio for Music: Ecological perception, embodied cognition and applied technique. (Jo Lord)

    In what ways have guitar players’ tools come to shape the playing style, compositional approach, and recording methodology of noise rock music from the 1970s to the present? (Tyrian Purple)

    Under what circumstances does performing new music encourage creativity in string players? (Agata Kubiak) - awarded October 2019 

    Live Popular Electronic Music: ‘Performable Recordings’. (Christos Moralis) - awarded January 2019

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