Draft:Nicholas Bannan

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Nicholas Bannan
Born	Nicholas Bannan (1955-03-08) 8 March 1955 Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Alma mater	Clare College, Cambridge (BA, MA) University of Reading (PhD)
Spouse	Valerie Bannan ​ (m. 1980)​
Scientific career
Fields	Musicology Music education
Institutions	University of Western Australia Oxford Brookes University University of Reading London College of Music
Thesis	Music in Human Evolution: an adaptionist approach to voice acquisition  (2002)
Website	research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/nicholas-bannan

Nicholas Bannan FBA FRAI (born 8 March 1955) is a British musicologist, music educator, composer, conductor and writer who retired from the UWA Conservatorium of Music at the University of Western Australia at the end of 2020. He was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral before studying at Cambridge University, focusing on singing and composition. He taught at schools including Eton College, Desborough School, Maidenhead, and the Yehudi Menuhin School, and at the London College of Music, the University of Reading, where he completed a PhD on the evolutionary origins of the human singing voice, and Oxford Brookes University. He won the Fribourg Festival Prize for Sacred Music in 1986, and his works have received performances from the Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral, La Chapelle Royale de Paris, the Guildhall String Ensemble, and the Allegri and Grieg string quartets. From 2006, he lectured in Music at the University of Western Australia, where he lead courses in music education and aural, founded and directed The Winthrop Singers, and supervised masters and doctoral research. His books Every Child a Composer (Peter Lang) and First Instruments (OUP) were published in 2019. His work has sought to create a music pedagogy that is in accordance with the evolution of music.

Education

Nicholas completed his undergraduate studies at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was also a choral exhibitioner. He moved to the University of Reading in 2002 to write his PhD thesis on 'Music in Human Evolution: an adaptationist approach to voice acquisition'.

Academic career

In 2006, Nicholas moved to Perth, Western Australia, to take up a post at the University of Western Australia, where he spent most of his later academic career. He has played a leading role internationally in the development of the new field of evolutionary musicology. In 2012, he edited the multi-chapter book Music, Language, and Human Evolution (Oxford University Press), and has also published several book chapters, journal articles and encyclopaedia entries on the role and nature of musicality in human evolution and the implications for music education.

Nicholas is the inventor of Harmony Signing, a pedagogical system that has been the subject of several publications over the last twenty years. It employs manual gestures as a means of exchanging musical information without the use of words or notation. It was first developed at the University of Reading, UK, with members of a children's choir who used it to create their own compositions and arrangements. It has been adapted and extended as a tool for developing tuning and blend in choirs and instrumental ensembles, and for teaching music theory and aural in a practical and user-friendly manner to children, university students, music teachers and members of adult choirs. It is informed by evolutionary psychology and research in the neurology of music in exploiting instinctive, social interaction as the best means of experiencing and internalising musical connections. In minimising verbal instruction, it transcends language barriers: Nicholas has taught in China and Brazil, leading sessions with participants with whom he does not share a common tongue. Harmony Signing has been trialled and presented in a variety of contexts: at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the University of Western Australia, and at conferences of the International Society for Music Education in Tenerife, Bologna, Porto Alegre, Baku and Helsinki.

Publications

Books

• Bannan, N. 2020. First Instruments: Teaching Music Through Harmony Singing. Oxford University Press
• Bannan, N. 2019. Every Child a Composer: Music Education in an Evolutionary Perspective. Peter Lang
• Bannan, N. (Ed.). 2012. Music, Language, and Human Evolution. Oxford University Press.
• Odam, G. & Bannan, N. (Eds) 2005. The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate.

Book Chapters

• Education and Extremisms: Rethinking Liberal Pedagogies in the Contemporary World. Edited by Farid Panjwani, Lynn Revell, Reza Gholami, and Mike Diboll. Routledge, 2017. ISBN 9781138236110. Routledge, 2019. ISBN 9780367198718. Ebner contributes a chapter.
• Bannan, N. (2021). An evolutionary perspective on the human capacity for singing. In F. Russo, B. Ilari, & A.J. Cohen (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Studies in Singing. Vol 1. Development. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Bannan, N. (2021). Evolutionary Psychology and the Performing Arts. In T. Shackelford (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Bannan, N. (2012). Introduction. Music, Language, and Human Evolution, 3.
• Bannan, N. (2012). Harmony and its Role in Human Evolution. Music, Language, and Human Evolution, 288.
• Hai, T. Q., & Bannan, N. (2012). Vocal Traditions of the World: an Evolutionary Account of Voice Production in Music. Music, Language, and Human Evolution, 142.
• Espi-Sanchis, P., & Bannan, N. (2012). Found Objects in the Musical Practices of Hunter-Gatherers: Implications for the Evolution of Instrumental Music. Music, Language, and Human Evolution, 173.
• Bannan, N. and Woodward S. (2008) Spontaneity in the musicality and music learning of children, in Colwyn Trevarthen and Stephen Malloch (Ed.s) Communicative Musicality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 465-494.

Journal Articles

• Bannan, N. (2017) ‘Darwin, Fux and Schenker in the Primary Classroom’, In Paget, J. R., Rogers, V. and Bannan, N. Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter of MSA Symposium on Music Performance and Analysis. http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=ecubooks
• Bannan, N. (2017). Darwin, music and evolution: New insights from family correspondence on The Descent of Man. Musicae Scientiae, 1029864916631794.
• Bannan, N. (2013). Music, play and Darwin's children: Pedagogical reflections of and on the ontogeny/phylogeny relationship. International Journal of Music Education
• Bannan, N. (2010). Embodied Music Theory: New Pedagogy for Creative and Aural Development. Journal of Music Theory, 24, 197-216.
• Bannan, N. (2009). Priming the musically instinctive: new pedagogy for creative improvisation and aural development. Musicworks, Journal of the Australian Council of Orff Schulwerk, pp. 39-52.
• Bannan, N. (2008). Language out of Music: the four dimensions of vocal learning. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 19 (3): 272-293
• Bannan, N. & Montgomery-Smith, C. (2008). ‘Singing for the Brain’: reflections on the human capacity for music arising from a pilot study of group singing with Alzheimer’s patients and carers. Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 128 (2): 73-78
• Bannan, N. and Woodward S. (2008), ‘Spontaneity in the musicality and music learning of children’ in Colwyn Trevarthen and Stephen Malloch (Ed.s) Communicative Musicality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 465-494.
• Bannan, N. (2006). A engenharia reversa na voz humana: Examinido os pré-requisitos de adaptação para canção e linguagem (trans. B. Ilari). Cognição & Artes Musicais (Brazilian Journal of Music Cognition) Vol. 1 No 1, pp. 30-39.
• Bannan, N. (2006). Review of Jolyon Laycock’s " “The Changing Role for the Composer in Society: A Study of the Historical Background and Current Methodologies of Creative Music-Making” Music and Letters - Volume 87, Number 4, pp. 666-667. Oxford University Press.
• Bannan, N. (2005). ‘Music Teaching without words’, in Mauricio Dottori, Beatriz Ilari and Rodolfo Coelho de Souza (ED.s) Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Cognition and the Musical Arts. Curitiba, Brazil: Universidade Federal do Paraná, pp. 400-405. Nicholas Bannan & George Odam (2005). ‘Prelude – The developing conservatoire’, in George Odam & Nicholas Bannan (Ed.s) The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate, pp. 15-18.
• Nicholas Bannan & George Odam (2005). ‘Prelude – Conservatoires, creativity and performance’, in * George Odam & Nicholas Bannan (Ed.s) The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate, pp. 29-31.
• Nicholas Bannan & George Odam (2005). ‘Prelude – Creative processes in collaboration’ in George * Odam & Nicholas Bannan (Ed.s) The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate, pp. 133-135.
• Nicholas Bannan & George Odam (2005). ‘Prelude – On education and training’, in George Odam & * * Nicholas Bannan (Ed.s) The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate, pp. 179-183.
• Nicholas Bannan & George Odam (2005). ‘Prelude – Research method into practice’, in George Odam & Nicholas Bannan (Ed.s) The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate, pp. 221-223.
• Nicholas Bannan & George Odam (2005). ‘Prelude – Curriculum, community and outreach’, in George * Odam & Nicholas Bannan (Ed.s) The Reflective Conservatoire. London: Ashgate, pp. 275-277.
• Bannan, N. (2004). ‘A Role for Action Research Projects in Developing New Pedagogical Approaches to Aural and Musicianship Education’ in J. Davidson (Ed.), The Music Practitioner: Exploring practises and research in the development of the expert music performer, teacher and listener. London: Ashgate. (pp. 295-308) ISBN 0 7546 0465 9
• Bannan, Nicholas and Gohn, Daniel. (2004). Career Development for Music Teachers Through International Distance-Learning Media. In: Revista Em Pauta, v. 15, n. 24, , p. 141-153. Porto Alegre, Brazil.
• Bannan, N. (2003). ‘‘Reverse-Engineering’ The Human Voice: Examining The Adaptive Prerequisites For Song And Language’, in Reinhard Kopiez, Andres Lehmann and Irving Wolther (Ed.s), Proceedings of the Fifth Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, CD-ROM, Hanover: Hochschule für Musik und Theater.
• Bannan, N. (2002). ‘Developing vocal skills in the secondary classroom’, in G. Spruce (Ed.) Aspects of teaching secondary music: perspectives on practice. London: The Open University/Routledge Falmer.
• Bannan, N. (2000) ‘Prosody, meaning and musical behaviour’ ICMPC CD ROM, S. O’Neill, (Ed.) Keele: Department of Psychology, University of Keele.
• Bannan, N. (2000). ‘Instinctive singing: lifelong development of ’the child within’’, in The British Journal of Music Education 17: 3, 295-301, Cambridge University Press.
• Bannan, N. (2000). ‘Gestural Language for the Representation and Communication of Vocal Harmony’, 65-70, Canadian Music Educator, 41.
• Bannan, N. (1998) 'Out of Africa: the evolution of the human capacity for music', in C.v.Niekerk (Ed.) Proceedings of the 23rd International Society for Music Education World Conference Pretoria, SA: University of South Africa Press pp. 26-33.
• Bannan, N. (1998). 'Aural feedback, vocal technique, and creativity', in B.A.Roberts (Ed.) The Phenomenon of Singing Newfoundland, Canada: Memorial University Press pp. 11-19.
• Bannan, N. (1997). 'The consequences for singing teaching of an adaptationist approach to vocal development', in Proceedings of the First International Conference on Music in Human Adaptation, VirginiaTech/MMB Music Inc., 39-46
• Bannan, N. (1997). 'Singing and Original Sin: do boys' voices have to 'break'?', in Church Music Quarterly London: Royal School of Church Music, April, 16-17.

Encyclopedia entries

• Bannan, N. (2019) Darwin’s Belief’s. In T. Shackelford and V. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. New York: Springer.
• Bannan, N. (2018). Music and Song, Evolutionary Approaches to. H. Callan (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 1-11. London: Wiley-Blackwell
• Bannan, N. (In Press) Darwin’s Education. In T. Shackelford and V. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. New York: Springer.

Compositions

• 1981 String Quartet 1 (Allegri Quartet) Radcliffe Award Commission Performances in Hull, Nottingham, Southampton and London
• Horses of the Night (Collage ensemble) Southern Arts Commission
• 1986 Magnificat (Chapelle Royale de Paris/Herreweghe) Fribourg Festival prize for Sacred Music; UK premier, the BBC Singers (1987)
• 1987 Round-Dance (Guildhall String Ensemble) New MacNachten Concerts Commission
• 1994 String Quartet 2 (Grieg Quartet of London) Holst Foundation Award
• 2012 Aeolia, for flute ensemble. Commissioned by the Fisenden Flute Ensemble for premier at the American Flute Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• 2018 Quartet for Tenor Saxophones. Commissioned by the Meraki Saxophone Quartet. First movement (Prelude) premiered May 20th 2018 at Paper Mountain Upstairs, 267 William St, Northbridge, W.A. All four movements, including premiers of movement 2 (Aria), 3 (Scherzo) and 4 (Finale) to be presented in 2020.
• 2019 The Gospel According to St Luke. Commissioned by St Patrick’s Basilica, Fremantle, for performance at the Palm Sunday Mass on April 14th, 2019 as part of ANCA’s National Choralfest. First performance given by the combined choirs of St Patrick’s Basilica, St John’s Anglican Church, Fremantle, and The Winthrop Singers, accompanied by Dominic Persissinotto (organ) and directed by the composer. A second performance was given on Friday August 30th as part of the UWA Conservatorium of Music Lunchtime Recital Series in an adapted chamber version with Andrew Foote (Evangelist), Kieran Lynch (Jesus) and The Winthrop Singers, accompanied by Dominic Perissinotto (chamber organ), Miah Smith (‘cello) and Rowan Swarbrick (double bass).

External links

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Categories:

• 1955 births
• Living people
• Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge