Thomas James Samson, FBA (born 6 July 1946), commonly known as Jim Samson, is a musicologist and retired academic. Described as "a leading authority on the music of Chopin", his research extends to Romantic music, early 20th-century classical music and the music of east Central Europe in general.
Life and career
Thomas James Samson was born on 6 July 1946 in Carnlough in Northern Ireland. Educated at Queen's University Belfast (BMus) and studied with Arnold Whittall at the University College, Cardiff (MMus, PhD).
Samson was appointed to a research fellowship at the University of Leicester in 1972. He moved to the University of Exeter in 1973 as a lecturer; promotions followed, to reader in 1987 and Professor of Musicology in 1992. In 1994, he was appointed Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music at the University of Bristol, and was then Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, between 2002 and 2011.
Honours and awards
Samson was awarded the Order of Merit by the Polish government in 1990 and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy, in 2000. In 2018, he received the IRC Harrison Medal from the Society for Musicology in Ireland.
Selected publications
- Music in Transition: A Study of the Tonal Expansion and Early Atonality, 1900–1920 (Dent, 1977; reprinted in 1993).
- The Music of Szymanowski (Kahn and Averill, 1980).
- The Music of Chopin (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985; reprinted by Clarendon Press, 1994).
- Chopin: The Four Ballades (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
- (Editor) The Cambridge Companion to Chopin (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
- Chopin (Oxford University Press, 1996).
- (Editor) The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
- Virtuosity and the Musical Work: the Transcendental Studies of Liszt (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
- (Edited with J. P. E. Harper-Scott) Introduction to Music Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
- Music in the Balkans (Brill, 2013).
- (Edited with Nicoletta Demetriou) Music in Cyprus (Routledge, 2015).
References
- ^ Williamson, Rosemary (2001). "Samson, (Thomas) Jim". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.47094. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ "Samson, Prof. Thomas James (Jim)", Who's Who (online edition, University of Oxford, December 2018). Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- "Professor Jim Samson", Royal Holloway, University of London. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
- "Professor Jim Samson", British Academy. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
- "Irish Research Council - Harrison Medal | Society for Musicology in Ireland". musicologyireland.com. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded byRaymond Warren | Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music, University of Bristol 1994–2002 |
Succeeded byStephen Banfield |
| University of Exeter | ||
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- Living people
- 1946 births
- British musicologists
- Alumni of Queen's University Belfast
- Alumni of Cardiff University
- Academics of the University of Leicester
- Academics of the University of Exeter
- Academics of the University of Bristol
- Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London
- Fellows of the British Academy
- Chopin scholars
- Scholars of Romantic music