Katharine Ellis

Katharine Ellis, is a British musicologist and academic, specialising in music history. Since 2017, she has been the 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge. She previously taught at the Open University, at Royal Holloway, University of London and at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, before serving as Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music at the University of Bristol (2013–2017).

Early life and education Ellis studied at University College, Oxford, graduating with Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degrees. She also studied the violin at the Guildhall School of Music. Her DPhil was awarded in 1991 for a doctoral thesis titled "La revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 1834-1880: the state of music criticism in mid nineteenth-century France".

Academic career Ellis's first post in her academic career was as a junior research fellow in French studies at St Anne's College, Oxford In 1994, she joined Royal Holloway, University of London as a lecturer.

In 2013, Ellis joined the University of Bristol as its next Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music. She gave her inaugural lecture on 13 February 2014. In August 2016, it was announced that she would be the next 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, in succession to Nicholas Cook.

Research Ellis's research centres on the cultural history of music in France in the long nineteenth century. She also has interests in musical tastes and practices, women's musical careers, music criticism, and music in fiction. In 2013, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.

Selected works