Following their successful election to the RMA Student Committee at the RMA/BFE Research Students’ Conference held at University of Aberdeen in January 2025, we are pleased to welcome our new members! Günseli Naz Ferel (City St George’s, University of London) will be serving on the committee as the Student Representative and Yihan Jin, Elizabeth Walsh and Cassandra Fenton will be serving as Ordinary Members, between from January 2025 to January 2027.  

We would like to thank the 2024 committee for their outstanding efforts and dedication in shaping our communications, organising events, and so much more. We are also grateful to all the student members who put themselves forward for election. Below are the profiles of our newly elected members: 

Günseli Naz Ferel (Student Representative, 2025-2027) 

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. 

Yihan Jin (Ordinary Member, 2025-2027) 

Yihan Jin is a London-based pianist. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Performance at Royal College of Music under the supervision of Dr Christina Guillaumier and Professor Kenneth Hamilton. 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 (Ordinary Member, 2025-2027) 

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 an MPhil in Music from Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge and a BA(Hons) in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Aberystwyth University. 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 Representative
for the Corpus Christi College Music Committee. 

Cassandra Fenton (Ordinary Member, 2025-2027) 

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. 

Günseli Naz Ferel (Junior Student Representative, Student Committee)