Laurence Picken

Laurence Ernest Rowland Picken (16 July 1909 – 16 March 2007) was an ethnomusicologist and scientist. He had a wide research interest, and published works on cytology, biochemistry, musicology, Turkish musical instruments, and ancient Chinese and Japanese music.

Life and career Laurence Picken was born in Nottingham to Ernest Frederick Picken and Rosa Louisa Bevan. He studied at Waverley Road Secondary School, Birmingham. In 1928 he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a double first in natural sciences. His PhD, in 1935, was in zoology. He obtained a two-year Rockefeller Studentship to work at the École de Chimie, University of Geneva, studying the thermoelastic properties of living muscle and long-chain polymers using X-ray crystallography. He also obtained a Francis Maitland Balfour Studentship at the Department of Zoology, Cambridge to study long-chain molecules and their effect of on cell shape, and in the summer he studied freshwater ciliates in Lake Ohrid in Yugoslavia. He was made a fellow of the Institute of Biology, was a visiting professor at the University of Washington in 1959, and received the Trail Award from the Linnean Society in 1960 for his work on microscopy.

In the 1950s, Picken wrote articles on Chinese and Japanese music for Grove's Dictionary and the New Oxford History of Music, and edited the Journal of the International Folk Music Council. He also edited an occasional periodical Musica Asiatica.

Works The Organization of Cells and Other Organisms. Oxford University Press, 1960 Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey. Oxford University Press, London 1975 Musica Asiatica. 1: 1977, Vol. 2: 1979, Vol. 3, 1981, Vol. 4: 1984, Vol. 5: 1988, Vol. 6: 1991 Music from the Tang Court. Vol. 1: 1981, Vol. 3: 1985, Vol. 5: 1990, Vol. 6: 2007, Vol. 7: 2006, Oxford University Press, London

Festschriften Asian Music, vi/1–2, 1975, edited by F.A. Kuttner and F. Lieberman (Festschrift for Picken's 60th birthday) Music and Tradition: Essays on Asian and other Musics presented to Laurence Picken, edited by D.R. Widdess and R.F. Wolpert, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981.