Biography and CV

Tom Perchard was born in Canterbury, England, in 1976. He received his doctorate from the University of London in 2005, and he now teaches at the University of Westminster, where he is course leader of the BMus Commercial Music Performance degree. He is a contributor to The Wire magazine.

Education

1997-2000: Goldsmiths College, University of London: BMus Music (1st Class Honours).

2000-2002: Goldsmiths College, University of London: MMus Contemporary Music Studies (Distinction).

2002-2005: Goldsmiths College, University of London: PhD Music, Lee Morgan (1938-72): One Life in African American Culture, Music and History.

Employment

2006-present: Principal lecturer and course leader, University of Westminster. Courses taught on the cultural and sociological study of music, music analysis, dissertation writing.

2004-2006: Visiting Lecturer, Goldsmiths College: teaching on several units of the BMus Music and BMus Popular Music Studies degrees.

2004-2006: Visiting Lecturer, University of Westminster: teaching on several units of the BA Commercial Music degree.

Awards

2000: Jarvis PLC Award (music), Goldsmiths College, University of London.

2002-2005: Full PhD scholarship, Arts and Humanities Research Board (UK).

2003: Research travel award, Arts and Humanities Research Board (UK).

Publications

Article: ‘Writing Jazz Biography: Race, Research and Narrative Representation’, Popular Music History, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2007, pp. 119-145.

Book: Lee Morgan: His Life, Music and Culture (London: Equinox, 2006).

Book review: ‘Eithne Quinn: Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap’, Popular Music, Vol. 24, No. 3, October 2005, pp. 459-462.

In addition: a wide variety of writing in journalistic and educational contexts. More than 100 reviews and articles on jazz, hip hop, modern composition and other musics published in The Wire since 2001; articles also published in Cadence, Coda, Contemporary Music News. A liner note essay written to accompany Nine, none(-t), Matchless Recordings CD MRCD54 (2003). Educational work, including transcriptions, analysis and commentary on various forms of popular music, published in the Edexcel GCSE Anthology of Music (London: Peters Edition 2002) and the Aqa GCSE Anthology (London: Peters Edition 2003). 

Papers Given

‘Lecturer’ at esemplastic art happening curated by John Lely, Rational Rec, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 7 February 2006.

‘Too Clean to be Messed With’, International Leeds Jazz Conference, Leeds College of Music, 12 March 2005.

‘Lives, Times and John Coltrane’, Postgraduate Seminar in Musicology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 19 March 2002.

'Eddie Prévost’s Friday Night Workshops’, Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium, University of Guelph, Canada, 5 September 2001. 

Broadcasting

Memoir City: research, recording, writing and presenting of a 6-part radio series of oral histories on music in London, broadcast on Resonance104.4FM, January-March 2006.

Current Research Interests

Jazz and 20th-century African-American music; music and phenomenology; methods and politics of ethnography and history writing; quotation and intertextuality in music.