Claire Seymour
Claire studied Music at King's College Cambridge
and subsequently completed an MA and PhD in English Literature
at the University of Kent, where she researched Britten's relationships
with his poets and librettists. Her book, Expression and Evasion:
the Operas of Benjamin Britten was published by Boydell in 2004,
and most of her subsequent writing and teaching activities have
been of an interdisciplinary nature. As editor of the Thomas Hardy
Journal from 2005-09 she published extensively on Hardy and music,
and Finzi's settings of Hardy; she was the editor of John Cordingly's
2015 study of madness and opera, Disordered Heroes in Opera: A
Psychiatrist's Report; she taught British Studies at Tokyo University
for two years; and since 2006 has been an Associate Lecturer with
the Open University in the departments of both Music and English
Literature. From 2002-2017 she worked full-time in the secondary
education sector, for many years as Head of the Senior College
at Queen's College London. During this time she has continued
her work as a freelance violinist and in 2008 began writing music
journalism and criticism. She doesn't sleep much!