- Illuminating Gustavus the Third and the Art of Spectacle in 1830s London Alexander, Tamsin. 2017. Illuminating Gustavus the Third and the Art of Spectacle in 1830s London. Cambridge Opera Journal, 29(1), pp. 33-52. ISSN 0954-5867
- Review: 'Wagner in Russia, Poland and the Czech Lands: Musical, Literary, and Cultural Perspectives, ed. by Stephen Muir and Anastasia Beiina-Johnson' Alexander, Tamsin. 2016. Review: 'Wagner in Russia, Poland and the Czech Lands: Musical, Literary, and Cultural Perspectives, ed. by Stephen Muir and Anastasia Beiina-Johnson'. Music and Letters, 97(2), pp. 351-353. ISSN 0027-4224
- Review: 'A Musician Divided: Andre Tchaikowsky in his own words' Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Review: 'A Musician Divided: Andre Tchaikowsky in his own words'. Music & Letters, 96(3), pp. 491-494.
- Decentralising via Russia: Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in Nice, 1890 Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Decentralising via Russia: Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in Nice, 1890. Cambridge Opera Journal, 27(1), pp. 35-62. ISSN 0954-5867
- Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin in Britain, 1892 and 1906: Slipping between High and Low, Future and Past, East and West Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin in Britain, 1892 and 1906: Slipping between High and Low, Future and Past, East and West. Musiktheorie, 30(3), pp. 223-234. ISSN 0177-4182
- Too Russian for British Ears: La Vita per lo Czar at Covent Garden, 1887 Alexander, Tamsin. 2014. Too Russian for British Ears: La Vita per lo Czar at Covent Garden, 1887. Tekst. Kniga. Knigoizdaniye (Text. Book. Publishing), 2(6), pp. 30-48. ISSN 2306-2061
Dr Tamsin Alexander
Tamsin is a musicologist, specialising in European musical culture in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Staff details
Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups
I’m Director of Studies and Head of the Centre for Russian Music. My research examines intersections of music, politics and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. I have worked on the international spread of Russian opera, considering how, why and in what shapes this repertoire moved. Most recently, that research has been published in Cambridge Opera Journal, Nineteenth-Century Music Review and Musiktheorie. I am also interested in representations of industrial noise in music and film of the Soviet Union, and have shared these ideas on BBC Radio 3. Currently, I’m investigating music's sensory histories, with a focus on the ways in which changing lighting technologies shaped musical culture in 19th-century London.
Academic qualifications
- Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, PhD 2015
- Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, MPhil 2009
- BMus (hons), King's College, London 2008
Research interests
Cultural history; sensory history; lighting; nineteenth-century audiovisual cultures; opera; transnationalism; music and politics; Soviet Union; Russia; France; Britain; Czech lands; music and technology
Grants and awards
2024:
Early Career Research Fund Award, Goldsmiths.
Sensing Opera
Publications and research outputs
Edited Journal
- Tsarist Russia and the Musical World Alexander, Tamsin and Helmers, Rutger, eds. 2023. Tsarist Russia and the Musical World, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 20(2). 1479-4098
Book Section
- A Collaborative Genesis: Behind the Music of The Rite Alexander, Tamsin. 2025. A Collaborative Genesis: Behind the Music of The Rite. In: Davinia Caddy, ed. The Cambridge Companion to The Rite of Spring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108568685
- 'An “Extraordinary Engagement”: A Russian Opera Company in Britain, 1888’ Alexander, Tamsin. 2012. 'An “Extraordinary Engagement”: A Russian Opera Company in Britain, 1888’. In: Anthony Cross, ed. A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture. Open Book Publishers.
Article
- Cosmopolitan Connections: Yevgeny Onegin as realist drame lyrique in Nice Alexander, Tamsin. 2023. Cosmopolitan Connections: Yevgeny Onegin as realist drame lyrique in Nice. Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 20(2), pp. 335-357. ISSN 1479-4098
- Tsarist Russia and the Musical World: Introduction Alexander, Tamsin and Helmers, Rutger. 2023. Tsarist Russia and the Musical World: Introduction. Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 20(2), pp. 253-260. ISSN 1479-4098
- Review: Rimsky-Korsakov and his World. Ed. by Marina Frolova-Walker Alexander, Tamsin. 2019. Review: Rimsky-Korsakov and his World. Ed. by Marina Frolova-Walker. Music & Letters, 100(4), pp. 733-735. ISSN 0027-4224
Audio
- Talking History: Tchaikovsky Alexander, Tamsin; Bullock, Philip Ross and Crilly, Ciarán. 2024. Talking History: Tchaikovsky.
Broadcast
- Mosolov: Ten Artists that Shook the World Alexander, Tamsin. 2017. Mosolov: Ten Artists that Shook the World.
Show/Exhibition
- The Centre for Russian Music: Inside the Collections A Barbican Music Library free exhibition Alexander, Tamsin; Kondrashina, Evgeniya and Dixon, Gavin. 2018. The Centre for Russian Music: Inside the Collections A Barbican Music Library free exhibition. In: "The Centre for Russian Music: Inside the Collections", Barbican Music Library, London, United Kingdom, 12 January - 27 March 2018.
Thesis
- Tales of Cultural Transfer: Russian Opera Abroad, 1866-1906 Alexander, Tamsin. 2015. Tales of Cultural Transfer: Russian Opera Abroad, 1866-1906. Doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge
Conferences and talks
2024:
‘Sensing the Salon: Rachel Sassoon Beer’s Invisible Music’
RMA@150, Senate House and the British Library
2023:
‘The Electric Concert: Power and Illumination in late nineteenth-century London’
Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Open University (Milton Keynes)
2020:
‘Listen with your eyes: Lighting and audiovisuality in late nineteenth-century concert spaces’
Music, Mind and Body in 19th-century Britain, Open University (online)
2020:
‘In the Dark: Recovering Anton Rubinstein’
RMA 56th Annual Conference, Goldsmiths, University of London (online)
2019:
‘Russian Music on the World’s Stage: Beginnings’
Gnesin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow
2016:
‘Onegin in Nice and the Age of Exhaustion’
Russia and the Musical World: 19th-Century Networks of Exchange, Goldsmiths, University of London
2016:
‘Illuminating Spectacle on the Operatic Stage’
University of Oxford (Bodleian ‘Staging History’ series)
2016:
‘Illuminating Spectacle: Light and Illusion in Gustavus the Third (1833)’
19th Biennial International Conference on 19th-Century Music, University of Oxford
2016:
‘Russian opera abroad in the age of exhaustion: Yevgeny Onegin as realist drame lyrique in France, 1895’
Russian and East European Music (REEM) Study Group annual conference: Migration and Mobility, University of Cardiff
2016:
‘Illuminating Spectacle: Light and Illusion in Gustavus the Third (1833)’
The London Stage and the 19th-Century World, New College, University of Oxford
2015:
‘Russia on the World’s Stage: Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin as realist drame lyrique in France’
University of Nottingham colloquia series
2015:
‘Lost in Transfer: Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin as realist drame lyrique in France, 1895’
First Transnational Opera Studies Conference (TOSCA), Bologna.
2015:
‘Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin and the Changing Face of Russia in Britain, 1892–1906’
Goldsmiths Music Research Series
2015:
‘Illuminating Gustavus: French grand opéra and Spectacle in 1830s London’
Grand Opera on the Move, King’s College London.
2014:
'The First Routes of Russian Opera to Britain: A Celebrity, a Jubilee and a Tour (1881–88)'
Russische Musik in Westeuropa, 1867–1914. Ideen – Funktionen – Transfers. Musikwissenschaftliches Institut, University of Zürich.
2013:
‘Showing Paris how it’s done: Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in Nice (1890)’
Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS). Pittsburgh, USA.
2013:
‘Glinka and the “Slovanský Duch”: A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila in Prague, 1866–67'
Sociocultural Crossings and Borders: Musical Microhistories. International Musicological Society. Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius.
2013:
'The First Routes of Russian Opera to Britain: A Celebrity, a Jubilee and a Tour (1881–88)'
Cultural Cross-Currents between Russia and Britain in the Nineteenth Century. Birmingham City University.
2013:
‘Showing Paris how it’s done: Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in Nice (1890)’
Performing the Metropolis: Music, Urban Geography and Spatial Practices since 1789. King’s College London/ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2013:
‘Russomania and the Problems of putting Onegin on again (1892–1906)’
he National Element in Music. University of Athens.
2012:
‘Italianising Russian Opera: Glinka's A Life for the Tsar at Covent Garden (1887)’
British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES). Annual Conference, Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.
2012:
‘An “Extraordinary Engagement”: A Russian Opera Company in Britain (1888)’
Musicology Graduate Research Forum. University of Cambridge.
2012:
‘An Opera for the Jubilee: Glinka's A Life for the Tsar at Covent Garden (1887)’
Royal Musicological Association (RMA) Research Students Conference. Hull.
2011:
‘Italianising Russian Opera: Glinka's A Life for the Tsar at Covent Garden (1887)’
Russian Graduate Seminar Group. University of Cambridge.
2011:
‘An Extraordinary Engagement: A Russian opera company in Britain (1888)’
British Perceptions and Reception of Russian Culture, Eighteenth-Twentieth Centuries. Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.
PhD Supervision
I welcome applications for PhD projects relating to 19th/20th-century music and musical culture, Russian music, music of the Soviet Union, and opera. I have supervised topics on the Soviet classical recording industry, Italian opera in 19th-century London, and Rachmaninov's piano music. I am currently working with students on the production history of Prokofiev's Fiery Angel, and on Jewish composers in the Netherlands under the Nazi occupation.