Richard Witts was born in Cleethorpes on the coast of Lincolnshire and lives in Liverpool on the opposite coast and Brighton on the coast of Sussex. He writes books on music and society, and he has a special interest in the workings of cultural institutions. Since September 2010 Richard has been invited by Edge Hill University to create for it an Hons. Music degree course, and, ultimately, a music department. Before that he was a lecturer in music at the University of Edinburgh (2007-10). He previously taught at Goldsmiths’ College (University of London), the University of Surrey (in sociology and music) and the University of Sussex. In connection with Goldsmiths’, he is currently researching music policy and presentation on BBC radio and television.
**Richard’s currently working with Icebreaker on an audio-visual project called ‘Kraftwerk Uncovered’. It will premiere at the Science Museum IMAX Cinema on Friday 24 January 2014, followed by a tour starting at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall on Wednesday 5th February.Here are two links:
http://youtu.be/AQsXuSi1saY http://icebreakerkraftwerk.co.uk/**
**Richard’s latest article can be found in the new edition of the journal Popular Music History.
**Richard’s talk in BBC Radio 3’s series ‘Paris 1913’ centres on the premiere of The Rite of Spring. It is available from the BBC iPlayer, and with visuals on Vimeo and You Tube:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pmh1g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjpTgrXX0as **
**Richard has given papers at two conferences so far this summer. The first, held at the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds, concerned the future of music on radio (it looks good, he says!). The second, at the annual conference of the European Cinema Research Forum, dealt with issues around the music of the prolific film composer in Czechoslavakia, Zdenek Liska (1922-1983).**
**Links are here to episodes of Richard’s BBC Radio 3 series on the Music Appreciation Movement (August 2011, repeated September 2012), produced by Sara Davies:
Episode 1: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013m49b
Episode 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013m4b3
Episode 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013m6wg
Episode 4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013n0kw **
**Richard’s latest chapter is now out, in the first academic study of the band Kraftwerk. It’s in Kraftwerk: Music Non-Stop (Continuum, 2011). Details can be found here:
http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=133992&SubjectId=1381&Subject2Id=1396**
**Richard’s been interviewed by the Italian web magazine Retrophobic (February 2011), and the article (in Italian or English) can be found through this link:
http://www.retrophobic.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=898:the-passage-dick-witts-passaggio-a-nord-ovest&catid=30:80s&Itemid=27#ENGLISH**
**Richard’s written the opening chapter for the first-ever academic book on The Fall:
ed. Goddard & Halligan: Mark E. Smith and The Fall – art, music and politics. Ashgate (2010). Here’s a link:
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&pageSubject=310&title_id=9540&edition_id=12247**
**Richard has written a dozen two-page entries on classical music and history for the new MUSICA Encyclopedia. His composer subjects are Strauss, Elgar, Ethel Smyth, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Britten, Walton and Tippett. He also writes about Nationalism, Germany history 1880-1920, and British history 1880-1980. Follow this link to the encyclopedia (his pages on Nationalism can be downloaded there):
http://www.millenniumhouse.com.au/title-musica.html**
**Richard’s pleased that Icebreaker’s just been awarded an Arts Council grant to tour Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo’ film concert that he’s been working on. It opens the Brighton Festival at the Dome on 1st and 2nd May. Icebreaker will also appear at Camp Bestival in July and tour Britain in the Autumn.**
**Richard’s discovered a symphony. He found the 80-year-old ‘Edinburgh Symphony’ by the German composer Julius Röntgen in a couple of boxes. Here’s the story as it’s told on various news sites:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/all-news/symphony-160310
BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_8560000/8560495.stm
The Scotsman newspaper:
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh/University-unveils-lost-Edinburgh-Symphony.6146444.jp
Edinburgh Evening News:
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/University-unearths-39lost39-city-symphony.6141607.jp**
**There are four extracts on YouTube of Richard’s keynote paper for the University of Salford’s conference on The Fall, 6 May 2008. The links are:
(i) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N6yCShYXH4s&feature=channel_page
(ii) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-vWN1IS3LSc&feature=channel
(iii) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7U-xjHJynEs&feature=channel
(iv) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kzEao_Cf57Y&feature=channel**
**Richard’s latest book is titled ‘The Velvet Underground’. It’s a study of the music and context of the influential band. Published by the University of Indiana Press in America and Equinox in Britain. You can read reviews of Richard’s latest book from The Guardian (‘paperback of the week’) and the London Review of Books by clicking on these links: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1878733,00.html and http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n06/grei01_.html.**
**Here’s a link to a podcast of Richard’s lecture on Critical Theory for the Media & Culture course at the school of Art, Culture & Environment at the University of Edinburgh: https://ace-podcast.ace.ed.ac.uk/groups/ltblog/weblog/e6cf7/**
**A full-page article on Richard’s university work can be found in The Independent Thursday 18 September 2008, Education section, p.10. See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/is-music-policed-and-controlled-933831.html“**
**He can be found in Lucy O’ Brien’s biography titled ‘Madonna- Like an Icon’ (HarperCollins 2007) – see index – and in Simon Reynold’s ‘Rip It Up and Start Again – postpunk 1978-1984’ (Faber, 2006). He also appears several times in Clinton Heylin’s Babylon’s Burning – From Punk to Grunge (2007, Canongate USA/2008, Penguin Books, UK).**
***His current music project is Radio Icebreaker, which can be visited anytime via www.icebreaker.org.uk or www.totallyradio.com***