Background

I am a musician and performance researcher, currently working on A Performance History of Morris Dancing: Music and Musicians 1550-1700. This project is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship, funded by the EU Commission and hosted by Newcastle University.

I completed my PhD in 2020 at The University of Sydney under the supervision of Professor Liam Semler in the Department of English and Dr Alan Maddox at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. My PhD thesis was titled, Music and Festival Culture in Shakespearean Comedy and was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. In 2014, I studied a Masters of Arts in Shakespeare Studies at King's College London and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre with the support of a John Monash Scholarship.

In addition to my research, I work as a composer and performer with Matriark Theatre, a youth arts company which I co-founded in 2014. My compositions incorporate elements of my historical research to create folk styles and musical storytelling for visual/physical styles of theatre. I have also previously worked as a dramaturg for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National and a number of independent theatre companies in Australia.

External Roles

Vice President, Matriark Theatre

Treasurer, Musicological Society of Australia, Sydney Chapter

PG/ECR Representative, Australian Theatre and Performance Studies Association

Secretary, The Muffat Collective

Professional Memberships

Society for Renaissance Studies, Musicological Society of Australia, Australian Theatre and Performance Studies Association

Previous Posts

Teaching Fellow, Interdisciplinary Impact, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Sydney, 2020

Associateship of King's College London, 2016

Masters of Arts in Shakespeare Studies, King's College London, 2015

Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education, Excelsia College, 2014

Bachelor of Arts Honours Class 1, The University of Sydney, 2012

Bachelor of Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney, 2011

Research Interests

• Records of Saturnalian festival music in early modern Europe
• Vernacular singing cultures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
• Country dancing in the British Isles and France
• Print music culture in early modern Europe
  
• Historically-informed performance practice

Current Work

My current work is focused on sources detailing the performance of morris dancing. I am particularly interested in sources which describe the musical style of morris dancing either by referring to instrumentation or musical contexts prior to the eighteenth century. You can read a full abstract of my Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions project here.

• Roberts Parker K. Wassailing and Festive Music in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Australasian Drama Studies 2020, (76), 158-182.
• Roberts K. Aural Sensibility and Interpreting Shakespeare: Developing Modern Approaches to Compositional Dramaturgy in Hamlet and Macbeth. Sydney Undergraduate Journal of Musicology 2012, 2, 4-19.
• Roberts Parker K, Parker S, Jelbart A, Mcwilliam M, Wilson A. Urza and the Song in the Dark. 2020. Darling Quarter: ARA Theatre.
• Roberts Parker K, Morris D, Parker S. Midsummer Madness. 2019. Eastside Sydney, Australia: Eastside Sydney Music Festival.
• Roberts Parker K, Parker S, Jelbart A, Den Engelsman R. HalfWorld. 2014.
• Roberts Parker K, Parker S, Jelbart A. Monstrosities. 2019. Sydney: Matriark Theatre.
• Roberts Parker K, Parker S, Jelbart A, Den Engelsman B. GODFACE. 2015. Australia.
• Smith L, Roberts Parker K, Parker S, Jelbart A. There is a Tribe of Kids. 2018. Carlton, Australia: Theatre.