Günseli Naz Ferel (she/they) is a PhD student in Music at City St George’s, University of London. Her research centres electronic dance music cultures through the lens of affect theory with a focus on experiences of migration, feelings of belonging and being at home. Some of her areas of interest are sociology of affect and music, ethnographically-informed composition, electronic dance music cultures, producing sonic stories for live performances and radios, sound foraging and manipulation and opening up spaces for solidarity in music scenes. Together with her research endeavours, she creates as a sound artist, DJ and radio host. Her previous research experience includes an MA degree at Bogazici University and her thesis was an ethnography focusing on the organisational and discursive dynamics of the underground music organisations in Turkey.

Noa Nishizawa is a professional brass player and artistic researcher based in Manchester. She completed both her BA and MA at the Royal Northern College of Music, supported by numerous scholarships including the Wolfson Trust Award and the Lucy Hale Award, which enabled her to purchase her own professional instruments. She is currently completing a PhD as an artistic researcher at the University of Salford within the Leverhulme Aural Diversity Doctoral Research Hub (LAURA). Her doctoral research explores how visual elements in brass ensemble performance can enhance the musical experience of musicians with hearing loss. As a musician with profound bilateral hearing loss, Noa challenges conventional assumptions about music and disability. Rather than viewing hearing loss as a limitation, she embraces it as an integral part of her artistic identity. Her research project, Can You See the Sound?, has been recognised through the RNCM Creative Innovator Award and the Yamaha Entrepreneurship Award, opening music-making to a wider range of people, regardless of the challenges they face.

Yihan Jin is a Wales-based pianist. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Performance at Cardiff University under the supervision of Professor Kenneth Hamilton and Professor Caroline Rae. Before starting her PhD, she earned a Master of Performance with distinction from the Royal College of Music and a Bachelor of Music from Cardiff University. Her research focuses on the performance history of pianistic approaches to Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas.

Yihan has performed at numerous venues in the UK, including the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Shrewsbury St. Chad’s Church, and Haslemere Methodist Church, and internationally at the City Hall of Paris, Regional Conservatory of Versailles, Médiathèque de l’Europe, and Guangdong Opera House VFun Concert Hall. She has also given solo and chamber concerts at Cardiff University Concert Hall and premiered works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies at the university’s International Study Day.

As a collaborative pianist, Yihan has extensive experience working with chamber groups, solo instrumentalists, singers, orchestras, choirs, composers, and visual artists.

Elizabeth Walsh is a PhD in Music student at the University of Aberdeen. She is supervised by Chris Collins and Matthew Machin-Autenrieth and is the recipient of the Derek Ogston Postgraduate Music Scholarship. Her research re-examines the historiography of twentieth-century Spanish composer Joaquín Turina (1882-1949), particularly his marginalisation from Spanish and international musicological discourse. Elizabeth holds a BA(Hons) in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Aberystwyth University and an MPhil in Music from Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. Her interests lie more generally in twentieth-century Spanish music, history and culture and she previously carried out research on Manuel de Falla, Spanish musical nationalism and flamenco. Elizabeth is also a violinist, studying most recently with Yuri Torchinsky, and a former member of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales and the Hallé Youth Orchestra. She was the MCR/Postgraduate Music Committee Representative for Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and a member of the Local Organising Committee for the 2025 BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference.

Cassandra Fenton (she/her) is a PhD Music student at the University of Bristol, where she is researching notated chants in English pontifical manuscripts produced between the 10th and 13th centuries. Her research is co-supervised by the University of Exeter and funded by the South, West, and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. Originally from the United States, Cassandra completed an MPhil in musicology at the University of Bristol in 2022, MSt in musicology at the University of Oxford in 2019, and BA with joint honours in Music and History at Sweet Briar College in 2018, where she was awarded the Anne Gary Pannel Taylor Graduate Fellowship in History. Alongside her research, Cassandra is an active member of Bristol’s Centre for Medieval Studies and the SWW DTP student committee. 

Elisabeth Pfeiffer is a predominantly Germany-based ukulele performer and teacher. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Surrey. Her practice-based research centres on ukulele tone production and the idiotechnes of various ukulele experts, including herself. Individual techniques are documented online in The Ukulele Technique Compendium, a diverse and continually growing resource for players, teachers, composers, and researchers. Outside of academia, she has established herself as a performer, author, and festival organiser within the European ukulele community. In addition to publishing several method books, she has produced a broad range of solo repertoire editions, including transcriptions of Renaissance guitar works and substantial collections of her own ukulele études. Between 2018 and 2024, she organised five editions of the UFO – Ukulele Festival Obermörmoosen in her native region of Bavaria. As a performer, she presents solo arrangements of popular and rock repertoire, Renaissance music, and contemporary works. She continues to expand the ukulele’s solo literature through her own compositions and by commissioning new pieces. Elisabeth taught ukulele didactics and performance at the Zurich University of Arts (ZHdK) from 2023 to 2025.

Cath Warren (she/they) is a Liverpool based PhD Music student at the University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on the political implications of musical theatre, specifically relating to American Nationality and American Superiority. She holds a BA in Popular Music with English Literature, and an MRES in Music, both from the University of Liverpool. Their research interests also extend to the representation of sociological issues in works of musical theatre. Outside of studying, Cath is an accomplished percussionist, having performed with the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain. Additionally, they work on improving student life in their department as School of the Arts EDI Champion, specifically working on making PGR life more accessible for neurodivergent students.

Maureen works closely with students who wish to organise RMA-supported study days to develop ideas and plan events. (mwolloshin1@gmail.com)

Dan Elphick is a Lecturer in Musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research and teaching focus on questions of music and politics from the 19th-century to the present, with a particular focus on music of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Poland, as well as issues of music analysis and its role alongside musicology. Dan is a convenor of the Slavonic and East European Music study group of BASEES, a member of the Centre for Russian Music at Goldsmiths, University of London, and sits on the Editorial Board for DSCH, the Shostakovich journal. Dan’s first book, Music Behind the Iron Curtain: Weinberg and his Polish Contemporaries is available from Cambridge University Press. Alongside his research, Dan is passionate about music education at all levels from pre-school to postgraduate research, and has worked with groups including the SMA and RMA on their education and outreach projects. (communications@rma.ac.uk)