Professor John Sloboda retires as Research Professor at Guildhall School

Professor John Sloboda, founder of Guildhall School’s Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts and one of the School’s most longstanding researchers, has retired after 16 years as Research Professor. Professor Sloboda was a significant driving force in the School’s research community; in addition to founding the Institute, he was Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘Music for Social Impact: Practitioners' contexts, work, and beliefs’ from 2020-2023, and from 2009-2019 led Guildhall School's ‘Understanding Audiences’ research programme.

To mark his retirement, the School held an event to celebrate his achievements and thank him for his work. In this special ResearchWorks event, several speakers offered reflections on their own research and/or enquiry stimulated by, or in response to, Professor Sloboda's keynote lecture to the 2009 Reflective Conservatoire Conference: ‘Challenges facing the contemporary conservatoire: a psychologist's perspective’.

Speakers included:

• Professor Sir Barry Ife, Research Professor, Guildhall School of Music & Drama – ‘How and in what ways can performance itself be classified as research? Some professional and paradigmatic reflections’ (video presentation)
• Professor Helena Gaunt, Principal, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama – ‘Embracing professional and paradigm reflection: some further questions’
• Dr Karen Wise, Research Fellow, Guildhall School of Music & Drama – ‘Research for/ as reflection’
• Professor Geoff Baker, Visiting Researcher, Guildhall School of Music & Drama – ‘Can music teaching be a powerful tool for social justice?’
• Dr Jo Gibson, Research Fellow, Institute for Social Justice, York St John – ‘Conservatoires, critical reflection and change: a community musician’s perspective’
• Professor Lukas Pairon, founding director, SIMM – ‘Give music a chance’

The event took place in front of an in-person audience and was also available to attend online. The debate raised a number of key questions about the nature of the arts in society and the role of conservatoires in a 21^st century context: what and how conservatoires teach, how they might better serve the communities in which they are located, and some of the ways in which they might need to change. In the spirit of Professor Sloboda’s original paper, this constructive provocation gave those that work in conservatoires a great deal of food for thought.

Commenting on the event and his future plans, Professor John Sloboda said “As many know, the work of a thinker is never really over until the capacity to think and communicate departs. So I plan to be going on thinking and writing about the issues that matter to me, proudly signing my name as Emeritus Professor of this great institution. I’m very grateful to Jonathan Vaughan, Guildhall School’s Principal, and to all the colleagues who organised this event dedicated to academic debate, and I look forward to participating in debate and dialogue for many years to come around the issues that matter to me and Guildhall colleagues.”

Professor Jonathan Vaughan, Principal, said “I am delighted we’ve been able to mark John’s retirement in this way, with a spirit and quality of discourse that is testament to the research and thinking he has inspired, both here at Guildhall and across the sector. The influence he has had on the School and on many of us personally is enormous. I couldn’t be more pleased that John has agreed to continue to be associated with Guildhall School into the future.”

About Professor John Sloboda

Professor John Sloboda is Emeritus Professor at Guildhall School, where he was founder of its Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts.  He was Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project 'Music for Social Impact: Practitioners' contexts, work, and beliefs' from 2020-2023, and from 2009-2019 led Guildhall School's 'Understanding Audiences' research programme. He is Emeritus Professor at Keele and was a staff member of the School of Psychology at Keele from 1974-2008, where he was Director of its Unit for the Study of Musical Skill and Development, founded in 1991. John is internationally known for his work on the psychology of music. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and has been President of both the Psychology and General Sections of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. He served a 3-year term as founding President of www.simm-platform.eu, an international platform for research into the Social Impact of Making Music. He was the recipient of the 1998 British Psychological Society's Presidents Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge, and in 2004 he was elected to Fellowship of the British Academy. In 2018, he was awarded an OBE for his services to psychology and music. His books include Handbook of Music and Emotion (co-edited with Patrik Juslin), and Exploring the Musical Mind, both published by Oxford University Press. He continues a close association with Guildhall School, where he is currently co-supervising three doctoral students.