Kate Kennedy (writer)
{{short description|British academic and writer (born 1977)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}
{{Infobox writer
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| name = Kate Kennedy
| honorific_suffix = FRHistS
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| caption = Kennedy in 2019
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1977|09|24|df=y}}
| birth_place = Bristol, England
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| occupation = {{flatlist|
- Biographer
- academic
- broadcaster
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| education = Wells Cathedral School
| alma_mater = {{ubl|St Catharine's College, Cambridge|Clare Hall, Cambridge }}
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| website = {{URL|https://drkatekennedy.com/}}
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Kate Kennedy (born 24 September 1977) is a British biographer, academic and BBC broadcaster, who specialises in literature and music of the twentieth century.{{cite web | title=Essential Classics, Music in the Great War: Austria-Hungary at War, This Week's Essential Classics Guest: Kate Kennedy|publisher=BBC Radio 3|work=Essential Classics| date=2021-04-20 | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p021l4ry/p021l4hc | access-date=2021-04-23}} She is the Director of Oxford University's Centre for Life-Writing and Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.{{Cite web|url=https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-kate-kennedy|title=Dr Kate Kennedy|website=oclw.web.ox.ac.uk}} She is also Director of the Centre for the Study of Women Composers, Director of the Museum of Music History and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.{{Cite web |title=Kate Kennedy |url=https://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/person/kate-kennedy/ |access-date=2025-03-10 |website=Wolfson College |language=en-US}}
Early life and education
Born in Bristol, Kennedy attended the specialist music school, Wells Cathedral School, where she studied as a cellist. In 1996 she commenced studying Music and then English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Despite a severe arm injury which affected her career as a cellist, in 2000 she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she studied for a postgraduate diploma in advanced performance.{{Cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Kate |date=2024-12-11 |title=A moment that changed me: I was loving life as a cellist – then something snapped in my arm |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/11/a-moment-that-changed-me-loving-life-cellist-something-snapped-in-my-arm |access-date=2025-03-04|newspaper=The Guardian}} She then completed a master's degree in twentieth-century literature at King's College London, and freelanced as a baroque cellist in London, helping to found the orchestra Southbank Sinfonia with its founder-conductor Simon Over,{{Cite web|url=https://www.southbanksinfonia.co.uk/about-us/|title=About us | Southbank Sinfonia|website=www.southbanksinfonia.co.uk}} before returning to Cambridge in 2005 where she completed a PhD at Clare Hall on the World War I poet and composer Ivor Gurney.{{Cite magazine|url=https://issuu.com/clarehall/docs/new_review_june_2016_v13/20|title=Trudi Tate|page=40|magazine=Clare Hall Review|year=2016|via=Issuu}}
Career
Kennedy has lectured in Music and English at Girton College, Cambridge, where she received a Katharine Jex-Blake Research Fellowship as well as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship.{{Cite web|url=https://issuu.com/girtoncollege/docs/girton_college_the_year_2014-15/106|title=The Year 2015|via=Issuu}}{{dead link|date=March 2025}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/listings?field_grant_scheme_target_id=3|title=Grant listings|publisher=Leverhulme Trust|website=leverhulme.ac.uk}} In 2016, she became a member of the English Faculty at Oxford University, where she is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (founded by Hermione Lee in 2011) and Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College.
Her 2024 book, Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound, tells the story of cellists Amedeo Baldovino (1916–1998), Pál Hermann (1902–1944), Lise Cristiani (1827–1853), and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch (born 1925), and their cellos.{{cite news|url=https://webview.wsj.com/webview/WP-WSJO-0000078873|access-date=31 January 2025|author=John Check|title=Cello Review: Hearing a Deeper Melody|date=27 December 2024|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal}} It was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society's Storytelling Award 2025.{{Cite web |title=Storytelling |url=https://royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk/awards/rps_music_awards/latest-winners/storytelling |access-date=2025-03-10 |website=Royal Philharmonic Society |language=en-GB}} The award recognises work that newly or distinctly furthered the understanding of classical music in the UK.
Selected bibliography
- Ivor Gurney: Poet, Composer (Ivor Gurney Society Journal Special Issue, 2007)
- The First World War: Literature, Music, Memory (Routledge, 2011)
- The Silent Morning: Culture, Memory and the Armistice 1918 (Manchester University Press, 2013), co-editor with Trudi Tate{{Cite web|url=https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719090028|title=Manchester University Press – The Silent Morning|website=Manchester University Press}}
- Literary Britten (Boydell and Brewer, 2018) {{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/literary-britten/BA36C3E2E83E63AB6BBD9C1FE6B85DB8|title=Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten's Vocal Works|editor-first=Kate|editor-last=Kennedy|date=23 April 2018|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|isbn=9781787442566|volume=13|via=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/9781787442566}}
- The Fateful Voyage (play script, 2018), starring Alex Jennings{{Cite web|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/music/the-fateful-voyage-city-of-london-festival-drapers-hall-music-review-9559004.html|title=The Fateful Voyage, City of London Festival, Drapers' Hall – music|first=Nick|last=Kimberley|date=24 June 2014|newspaper=Evening Standard|location=London}}
- Lives of Houses (Princeton University Press, 2020), co-editor with Hermione Lee){{Cite book|url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691193663/lives-of-houses|title=Lives of Houses|date=24 March 2020|publisher=Princeton University Press}}
- Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney (Princeton University Press, 2021){{cite book|url= https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691212784/dweller-in-shadows|title=Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691212784|access-date=2025-01-31}}
- {{cite book|author=Kate Kennedy|author-mask=0|title=Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound|date=December 2024|publisher=Pegasus Books|isbn=9781639367504|ref=none}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official|https://drkatekennedy.com/}}
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Category:Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Category:Alumni of Clare Hall, Cambridge
Category:Academics of the University of Oxford