DR CHRISTOPHER WILEY

Dr Christopher Wiley was among the speakers who presented at the ‘Words About Music’ conference held at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia on 12 April 2014.

Dr Wiley’s paper, ‘Music and (or?) Musical Biography’, examined aspects of the complex relationship between the life and the works in a range of composer biographies. Using case studies drawn from several different areas of his wider research – including the celebrated story of Mozart’s Requiem, the original volumes of the ‘Master Musicians’ series, and the autobiographical writings of Ethel Smyth – Dr Wiley illustrated how biographical narrative may shed much direct light on the music, or very little, or may even present a contradictory perspective from that evident from the score itself.

Held at Monash University Law Chambers, the international conference brought together scholars from across Australia and the UK, representing a range of disciplines including musicology, literature, history, and sociology.