Dr Steve Wilford

Stephen Wilford is a Research Associate in the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge and is part of the team working on the European Research Council-funded project ‘Past and Present Musical Encounters across the Strait of Gibraltar’. He studied at the University of Aberdeen, Leeds College of Music, and Goldsmiths, University of London, before completing his AHRC-funded PhD at City, University of London, with a thesis focusing upon music-making among the Algerian diaspora community of London. He has taught at City, University of London, the University of Southampton and Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an Early Career Research Fellow of the Institute of Musical Research (2016-17), and is currently a member of both the national committee of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology and the ethnomusicology committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Stephen’s work focuses upon North African musics, particularly those of Algeria, and spans a range of traditional and contemporary styles. He has a strong interest in the Arab-Andalusi traditions of Algeria, in both colonial and postcolonial contexts. His research is concerned with ideas of collective identity, cultural memory, diaspora and transnational flows of music. He is particularly interested in the role of technologies in the production and circulation of music among composers, performers and listeners, and the connections that these form between North Africa and Europe.