Esther Cavett
Stipendiary Lecturer at Somerville College; Senior Research Fellow, Kings College London
Dr Esther Cavett specialises in teaching music theory and analysis to the music students in Somerville College, and is Personal Tutor for Prelims.
Alongside her work at Somerville, she is Tutor in Music at Jesus and Lincoln Colleges, and Oxford Music Faculty Chair. She is also Senior Research Fellow in the music department at King’s College, London, where she co-ordinates the King’s St George’s Academy, which offers small-group, after-school music teaching for children living in Southwark, involving King’s College, London students as teaching assistants.
She set up and now assists in the running of Water City Music, a charity providing access to performance opportunities for musicians of all skills levels, working collaboratively, and she is trustee of The Society of Music Theory (SMA), where she was sponsor the SMA Music Literacy research programme and for the SMA’s widening participation offering generally.
Her recent publications and publications in progress focus on music literacies and pedagogies, the ethics of writing about living composers, and the perception of repetition in the music of English contemporary composer Howard Skempton.
Publications
Cavett. E. (in press). Supporting the mentee: Working at the sharp edge, in A practical guide for mentoring music teachers, Ed. S. Houni and M.Wolf, Routledge. (6000 words).
Cavett, E. (2022). Desire, gratification and the moment: A music analytical and psychological enquiry into the role of repetition in the music of Howard Skempton, with a response by the composer. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 47(2), 147-166.
Rivas, J., Sparey, R, Davies, J., Gleason-Mercier, C., Hughes, S., Knights, S, & Cavett, E. (2021). Voices from Southwark: Reflections on a collaborative music teaching project in London in the age of COVID-19. International Journal of Community Music, 14(2-3), 169-189.
Cavett, E. & Head, M. W. (Eds.). (2019). Howard Skempton: Conversations and reflections on music. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Cavett, E. & Head, M. (2017). Review of Edward Klorman, Mozart’s music of friends: Social interplay in the chamber works. Eighteenth Century Music, 14(2), 285-290. doi:10.1017/S1478570617000082
Cavett, E. Dudney, S., & Watts, M. (2016). Supervision for Learning. In C. van Nieuwerburgh, (Ed.), Coaching in Professional Contexts (pp. 213 – 226). London: Sage.
Cavett, E. (1990). A Conspectus of Mozart’s Music [on Mozart’s stylistic development]. In H. C. Robbins Landon, (Ed.), The Mozart Compendium (pp. 206-236). London: Thames and Hudson.
Cavett, E. (1988). Mozart’s ‘Haydn’ Quartets: Composing up and down without rules. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 113(1), 59-80.
Cavett, E. (1988). Mozart’s Codas. Music Analysis, 7(1), 31-53