Dr James Lea

• DMA in Piano Performance, minor in Ethnomusicology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• MA in Musicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• BA (Hons), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

James Lea received a doctoral degree in piano performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a masters in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

He has performed solo and chamber concerts and lectured throughout the US and the UK, as well as given numerous ‘Discovering Music’ talks for the Penarth Chamber Music Festival, the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival, and the Winchester Chamber Music Festival.

James’s research has centred on aesthetics as well as music in communities. He edited, along with the ethnomusicologist Thomas Turino, Identity and the Arts in Diaspora Communities (2004), a book examining the crucial roles played by artists in society, and has built upon this work to move into areas such as the philosophy of music, placemaking and community engagement. 

James has extensive experience as a pianist and uses this to inform his musicological practice, with his primary areas of focus being the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially Brahms, Mahler and Schoenberg.

James lectures on the musician in society, music history, analysis and aesthetics. He leads on research in music, and runs modules for undergraduate and postgraduate research projects. He also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations on a wide variety of topics.

James is keen to hear from prospective doctoral research students interested in topics relating to 19th-century music; philosophy of music; placemaking; and music in communities.

• Identity and the Arts in Diaspora Communities, co-ed Turino, Harmonie Park Press (2004).