Dr Amy Blier-Carruthers, Senior Lecturer in Music Performance (Education) at King’s, will present her new book, “From Stage to Studio: Performances versus Recordings in Classical Music“, in conversation with Dr Flora Wilson as part of the Music Colloquium in Saint David’s Room on 15 October 2025 from 16:30 to 18:00.
Seminar announcement : https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/from-stage-to-studio-performances-versus-recordings-in-classical-music
Link to book : https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003041689/stage-studio-amy-blier-carruthers
From Stage to Studio: Performances versus Recordings in Classical Music
15 October 2025 16:30 to 18:00
Strand Campus • Saint David’s Room
In this colloquium, Dr Amy Blier-Carruthers introduces her new book From Stage to Studio and explores some of its themes in conversation with Dr Flora Willson.
From Stage to Studio: Performances versus Recordings in Classical Music presents a cultural study of classical music-making through the analysis of live and studio performances of orchestral and operatic repertoire conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. The close listening analysis is based on detailed research into Mackerras’s private collection of over 600 reel-to-reel and cassette tapes containing recordings of over 1,000 live performances which he conducted between the 1950s and the late 1990s. This is contextualized with evidence collected during ethnographic fieldwork observations, presenting the opinions of Sir Charles, orchestral musicians from major London orchestras and opera houses with whom he was working during the first decade of the twenty-first century (Philharmonia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Opera House, English National Opera), and production team members working for recording industry leaders (such as Decca, EMI, and Chandos). This ethnography of classical music-making gives a voice to performers and music professionals, brings to light some important and heretofore hidden issues and explores a fascinating time of intense change in the recording industry. Including consideration of ways forward for performance, education, and recording, this book will be relevant to specialist practitioners, as well as music enthusiasts interested in concert life and recording studio habits, professional performers, recordists, music students, educators, and scholars interested in classical music.
Speaker’s info:
Amy Blier-Carruthers specializes in musicians’ experiences of performance on stage and in the recording studio, raising questions about creative agency, power balances, and collaborative working practices. Her monograph From Stage to Studio (Routledge, 2025) combines ethnography and performance analysis to examine music-making, collaborating with a range of professional musicians and recordists to experiment and gain new insights into the possibilities of performing for recording. She is Postgraduate Research Programme Leader and Interim Head of Research at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Senior Lecturer in Music Performance (Education) at King’s College London, and Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, as well as co-Chair of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Music Studies Network (EDIMS) and co-author of their report Slow Train Coming, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.