Rachel Beckles Willson is Professor of Intercultural Performing Arts at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA). This chair was established by Codarts.

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Prof. Rachel Beckles Willson has a hybrid professional arts practice, active as multi-instrumentalist, composer and scholar. Her early career was as a concert pianist, following studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London and the Liszt Academy, Budapest, while her career as a scholar began with PhD studies at King’s College London, and a focus on contemporary music of Hungary. Her first two monographs, György Kurtág, The Sayings of Peter Bornemisza (2004) and Ligeti, Kurtág, and Hungarian Music during the Cold War (2007), developed and expanded that interest in the socio-political sphere, whereas her subsequent book, Orientalism and Musical Mission: Palestine and the West (2013), explored the cultural politics of western classical music more broadly. For nearly a decade her research has developed through the oud, the eastern lute (The Oud: An Illustrated History is forthcoming), both as a fascinating object of material culture, and as a vehicle for composing and performing.   

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