As well as holding the established Chair of Music, David Clarke has acted as Director of the CETL (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) for Music and Inclusivity. Operational between 2005 and 2010, this was a major partnership between the Universities for the North East and The Sage Gateshead, led by Newcastle University (see www.cetl4musicne.ac.uk), and funded to the value of over £4.5M by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
David Clarke, Professor of Music, joined the Music Department in 1991, having previously lectured at Dartington College of Arts and the University of Liverpool. His interests include the composer Michael Tippett, on whom he has published various books and articles, as well as musical aesthetics, theory and analysis, and North Indian (Hindustani) classical music. As conductor, violinist and Hindustani classical vocalist in the Khyal tradition, he also remains active as a musical practitioner. He is a graduate of Royal Holloway College (University of London), read for his PhD under Jim Samson at Exeter University, and also studied as an exchange student at the University of Massachusetts and the Free University, Berlin.
David Clarke is an authority on the music of Michael Tippett. His book, The Music and Thought of Michael Tippett: Modern Times and Metaphysics, (Cambridge University Press), seeks to show how the ‘world vision’ embodied in the composer’s music and writings relate to the wider concerns of western modernity and to a metaphysics that remains doggedly present within it. Other books on Tippett include Language, Form, and Structure in the Music of Michael Tippett, one of the most detailed and extended analytical studies of Tippett’s music available, and Tippett Studies, which he edited and to which he contributed (many of the essays in this volume were originally presented at the 1995 International Tippett Conference hosted by Newcastle University Music Department).
David Clarke is a music theorist in the broadest sense, interested in analytical, philosophical, psychological, linguistic and semiotic applications to questions of musical meaning ¬– concerns variously reflected in his published articles and reviews. Feeding into this latter project are critical inquiries into cultural relativism and cultural pluralism e.g. ‘Eminem: difficult dialogics’, 'Elvis and Darmstadt' and an article on BBC Radio 3's late Junction.
David recently completed a major article for the journal *Music Analysis*, entitled 'Between Hermeneutics and Formalism: The Lento from Tippett’s Concerto for Orchestra (Or: Music Analysis after Lawrence Kramer)'. He is currently jointly editing a book with Prof. Eric Clarke (Oxford University) entitled *Music and Consciousness*, with chapters from contributors across a range of disciplines. David's own contriubtions to the volume include a solo authored chapter on music and time consciousness, and a jointly authored chapter with Tara Kini (Bangalore) on consciousness in the style of Indian classical music known as Dhrupad.
Future projects include a book provisionally entitled *Music after Postmodernism*, which will combine existing work on music and cultural pluralism with further reflections on encounters with musical others, drawing not least on his own experience of learning Indian classical music in the Khyal tradition.
David is currently Head of Research for Music.
He has supervised postgraduate students across a range of areas, including music analysis, music aesthetics and philsophy, music and cultural theory.
David is a member of the editorial board of the journal *twentieth-century music* and of the editorial collective of *Radical Musicology*; he is also on the Advisory Board of *Music Analysis*, having also served on that journal's editorial board for several years. He has acted as a reviewer for CUP, OUP and other academic presses, and as an external adviser for Liverpool University. He is also in demand as an external examiner.
David is module leader for Indian Music in Practice, and Opera: History, Issues, Approaches. He also contributes to the modules Practising Music Analysis and Understanding Music History, as well as supervising dissertations and projects. He has been a driving force in bringing the study of Indian classical music into the curriculum, through the World Music project of our CETL for Music and Inclusivity (see www.cetl4musicne.ac.uk/projects6.html).
Module leader for Indian Music for Postgraduates, plus supervisor of several research students reading for PhD and MPhil degrees.