I’m delighted to say that, at the annual University Day celebration this week, Prof Tony Whyton and I won the University of Salford’s Vice-Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award for 2014. This was for the Rhythm Changes: European Jazz and National Identities research project (2010-13), a brilliantly stimulating and massively creative and fun three-year jazz jaunt, caravanserai, parade, around the New (Euro-)Jazz Studies, with partners from Graz, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Birmingham, and Stavanger, musicians, artists, festivals, academics, archivists. Yes, that project was an absolute blast—and it’s still going, for we have the 3rd international Rhythm Changes conference, Beyond Jazz Borders, this September at Amsterdam Conservatory to look forward to.
Thank you for the award, Salford, it’s great to get such recognition. Here’s what the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Martin Hall (left, in photo below) , had to say at University Day, which was attended by 400 colleagues from across the institution.
The University of Salford is nothing without its people. Everyone has a part to play in making the University … the vibrant, pioneering and, above all, warm and welcoming institution that it is. Without you, this University would be little more than bricks and mortar. It is you who bring these buildings to life with your passion, your endless enthusiasm, your dreams, your focus on our students, your curiosity, thirst for knowledge, the need to find answers and a desire to change lives.
