Athenaeum Awards Projects 2025/26

Laura Bissell’s project supports the publication of her new monograph, Matrescence and Performance: Becoming/Unbecoming, which explores how contemporary performance can challenge dominant ideas about motherhood and make visible the often-overlooked experiences of becoming a mother. Drawing on the work of more than 25 artists and companies, the book examines how performance can offer new feminist perspectives on pregnancy, childbirth, care, loss and maternal identity.

Published by Intellect in March 2026 and distributed internationally through the University of Chicago Press, the book will bring RCS research to a global audience. The award supports the inclusion of colour images and artist permissions.

Emily Doolittle received funding to deliver the third Art-Making in the Anthropocene Mini-Residency, which will bring together RCS postgraduate students, staff and recent alumni for a four-day residency at Upper Woodburn Artist Residencies. Led by Emily, with guest artist Tania Rubio, the residency will support the development of outdoor and site-specific music, dance and theatre projects that creatively engage with environmental issues and the natural world.

The residency is designed to help participants explore new approaches to environmentally engaged practice while building a supportive creative community. The project will strengthen RCS’s growing profile in sustainability-focused arts research and deepens its partnership with Upper Woodburn as a hub for socially and environmentally engaged artistic work.

Emily Doolittle received funding to deliver the third Art-Making in the Anthropocene Mini-Residency, which will bring together RCS postgraduate students, staff and recent alumni for a four-day residency at Upper Woodburn Artist Residencies. Led by Emily, with guest artist Tania Rubio, the residency will support the development of outdoor and site-specific music, dance and theatre projects that creatively engage with environmental issues and the natural world.

The residency is designed to help participants explore new approaches to environmentally engaged practice while building a supportive creative community. The project will strengthen RCS’s growing profile in sustainability-focused arts research and deepens its partnership with Upper Woodburn as a hub for socially and environmentally engaged artistic work.

Diana Loosmore was awarded funding to create a new choreographic work with the graduating BA Modern Ballet cohort, drawing on research into themes including nature, connection, migration, displacement and the power of the natural world. Developed through a collaborative creative process, the project will provide students with opportunities to contribute to the creation of original work while gaining valuable professional performance experience.

The work will premiere as part of the BA Modern Ballet performances at RCS before being presented through Ballet Nights in London, helping students build industry connections and showcase their work to wider audiences.

Jamie Mackay and Annie McCourt received funding to present an interactive workshop at the 8th International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC8) Conference in Antwerp, sharing research-informed approaches to arts educator development. Drawing on Jamie’s PhD research and their work on the RCS postgraduate learning and teaching programmes, the session explores creativity, identity and professional growth through an innovative “island” metaphor for artistic development.

The project contributes to international conversations around teaching artistry while strengthening RCS’s connections with the global ITAC network.

Kevin MacKenzie’s research explores how guitar teaching differs across the Jazz and Traditional Music departments at RCS, examining approaches to repertoire learning, improvisation, harmony and technique. Drawing on his unique experience teaching in both departments, this project investigated how different pedagogical traditions can inform and strengthen one another.

The research supports cross-departmental learning and curriculum development, with outcomes including a research article, teaching resources and staff presentations designed to enhance teaching practice and student learning across the Conservatoire.

Stuart MacRae’s award enabled him to compose a major new work for acclaimed Scottish mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor and pianist Hamish Brown, reimagining the myth of Medusa through a contemporary lens informed by feminist perspectives. Supported by the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Thea Musgrave Fund, the project explored new approaches to voice, text and piano writing in the creation of a dramatic new song cycle.

The premiere at the 2026 Edinburgh International Festival and future recordings will bring the work to audiences in Scotland and beyond, contributing to RCS’s profile in new music research and performance.

Karen McAulay’s project explores the long-term impact of Dundee’s Leng Scots Song Prize through an oral history study of former competitors, teachers and medal winners. Working with partners including Dundee Libraries, the Sir John Leng Trust and the Friends of Wighton, Karen has been collecting personal stories about participation in the competition and its influence on musical lives, identities and engagement with Scottish song.

The research will contribute to a new monograph on Scottish music education and publishing, highlighting the lasting cultural value of music education and community music-making. It will be presented in public events in Dundee, including a concert and stakeholder gathering, helping to share the findings with participants and wider audiences.

Megumi McKillop’s project investigates how the geography and the physical layout of the scenic art studios inform and shape the workflow of the scenic artists in each unique producing houses across Scotland. Through ethnographic fieldwork at Dundee Repertory Theatre and Scottish Opera, she is working alongside scenic artists to explore how space, local culture and inherited practices influence the creation of stage scenery.

The research will produce a series of peer-reviewed publications documenting an under-researched area of theatre production and strengthening links between RCS and Scotland’s producing theatres. The findings will inform scenic art training and help preserve knowledge of a vital but often overlooked aspect of theatre-making.

Funding supported Arnold Myers‘s research into the history, acoustics and performance of brass instruments through participation in the American Musical Instrument Society Conference and a research visit to the National Music Museum in South Dakota. Presenting new work on the characteristics of cornets and trumpets, Arnold used the opportunity to exchange ideas with leading international scholars and develop future publications.

The award also enabled detailed study of the museum’s internationally significant collection of historic brasswind mouthpieces, contributing to ongoing research into period performance practice and instrument design. The project will inform future journal articles, public engagement activities and the continued development of RCS’s research in musical instrument history and acoustics.

Landon Peck’s project centred on how powerful and meaningful musical experiences shape people’s sense of self, understanding of the world and personal development. Working with Dr Yuko Arthurs (Goldsmiths, University of London), the study used a large-scale survey to explore the emotional, cognitive and social impact of aesthetic musical experiences across a diverse range of listeners.

The findings will contribute new insights to music psychology and inform future research on music, identity and wellbeing, while laying the groundwork for a larger AHRC funding application and enhancing teaching on the MA Psychology in the Arts programme at RCS.

Ailie Robertson’s award enabled a professional recording, film and published score of Beannacht (Benediction), a site-specific work for solo viola composed for the extraordinary acoustics of Hamilton Mausoleum. Working with violist Scott Dickinson, Zip-Tie Media and engraver Lillie Harris, Ailie investigated how extreme reverberation can shape composition, performance and listener experience.

Drawing on Scottish Gaelic keening traditions, the project combined contemporary composition with cultural memory and sound research. The deliverables support future performances and research dissemination.

Brianna Robertson-Kirkland’s project was to research the first full biography of the Corri family, a group of Italian musical émigrés who helped shape Edinburgh’s musical life between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The project draws on archival research in Scotland, London and Rome to uncover new evidence about the family’s roles as performers, publishers, teachers and cultural entrepreneurs.

The resulting monograph, already under contract with Boydell & Brewer, will offer new insights into migration, cultural exchange, women’s contributions to the music industry and Scotland’s musical heritage.

Anneke Scott’s project has enabled the first modern performance and filmed recording of a recently rediscovered setting of a work by the Italian composer Saverio Mercadante for horn, mezzo-soprano and piano. Developed in partnership with St Cecilia’s Hall, the project uses original nineteenth-century instruments to explore how historical performance practices can deepen understanding of this neglected repertoire.

Anneke’s work involves collaboration with RCS graduate Caitlin MacKenzie and pianist Jan Waterfield, and is set to create a high-quality digital resource for performers, researchers and students.

Oliver Searle’s project was designed to amalgamate composer-performers, dancers and visual artists to explore new approaches to immersive performance. Working with collaborators including Lewis Normand, Richard Craig, Alex South and Trent Kim, the project used improvisation, movement, sound and creative technologies to develop material for a future large-scale interdisciplinary work.

Through a series of collaborative workshops, the project tested and refined ideas across music, dance and visual art, creating a foundation for future performances, funding applications and research outputs. It notably strengthened interdisciplinary collaboration at RCS and expanded Oliver’s creative practice as a performer and composer.

Bekah Simms is creating two new versions of their acclaimed work Half-thorn Blooms, originally written for guitar duo and string orchestra. Working with Canadian guitarists Adam Cicchillitti and Steve Cowan, the project adapts the piece for more flexible chamber forces, making it easier to programme, tour and perform internationally.

By extending the life of an existing composition through new arrangements, the project supports wider dissemination of contemporary music while opening the work to new audiences, performers and performance contexts.

Bethany Whiteside received funding to bring together learning from Scottish Ballet’s Time to Dance® dementia programme and the AHRC-funded IMAGINED project in a major journal article exploring innovative approaches to dance for health research. Working with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, the article will examine how creative, ethnographic and co-produced methods can better centre the experiences of people living with dementia.

The publication will contribute to international debates in creative health and arts and health research, while strengthening RCS’s profile in dance for health, dementia studies and interdisciplinary research.

Bethany Whiteside‘s research explores how sociological perspectives can deepen understanding of creative health and the role of the arts in health and wellbeing. Drawing on findings from the AHRC-funded IMAGINED project and related arts and health research, this Athenaeum Award enabled a presentation to colleagues at the prestigious We Want More: Music / Sociology! conference at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 8-10 April 2026.

By focusing on meaning-making, reflexivity and lived experience, through ethnographic means, the research and presentation offered an important complement to the quantitative methods that often dominate arts and health research. The work contributes to growing interdisciplinary research at RCS.