About Ros
A pioneer in her field, Ros takes performance away from the concert platform, situating her work within a more socially engaged and reflective practice, placing communication at its heart.
Passionate about training musicians of the future, and enabling young people to have equal access to the life changing opportunities music can bring, Ros has developed a unique, multifaceted career: a curious musician, performer, and reflexive investigator, situating herself within music, health & lived experience, disability and social justice communities.
Ros holds a PhD – a reflexive study of her professional practise as a hospital musician – from SOAS, London. She has presented on her practice nationally and internationally. Ros has published articles and book chapters in The International Journal of Community Music, with OUP and Routledge.
Ros has led creative music projects with many UK orchestras and ensembles, and arts, health and disability organisations. She has devised and delivered training and mentoring programmes for professional musicians, conservatoires, universities, and for medical and nursing student programmes.
Her approach enables people to confidently explore music making as a form of socially engaged interaction, build confidence and skills, and develop a deeper understanding of the impact of music making on people’s lives and experiences.
A creative collaborator, Ros has partnered with audiologists, physiotherapists, health play specialists, musicians, robotics specialists, puppeteers, dancers, artists and poets, to create innovative and artistic educational and therapeutic creative health programmes and performances.
Performance
Ros has performed as a freelance clarinettist specialising in klezmer music throughout the UK. Described in the Guardian as one of the UK’s ‘leading klezmer clarinettists’; her career in klezmer performance includes being co-founder and first specialist teacher in Klezmer performance at The University of Manchester and appointed Head of Faculty for Klezfest 2017.
Ros founded the 1000 Days Project, an artistic collaboration of music and spoken word poetry, inspired by her experiences of musical interaction in hospital spaces and a desire to share the stories of her experiences creatively and empathically.
Musicians’ Development
Ros leads training and development programmes supporting musicians to develop their practise in using music in special educational needs, disability and healthcare settings. Ros has delivered training and creative projects across the UK and Europe, including for organisations Wigmore Hall Music for Life, Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, Denmark, Music Masters, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Britten Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Figura Ensemble, Hallé, and Musik Alliansen.
Music in Health
Ros is an award-winning specialist music and health practitioner whose commissioned projects in hospital settings include residencies, artistic collaborations and evaluation.
She runs training and mentoring for musicians in healthcare settings, organises artistic residencies in hospital settings and palliative care, and devises training and confidence building workshops for non-music specialists working in healthcare settings.
Ros is co-founder of Songbirds Music UK, an organisation dedicated to improving the lives of children and young people affected by ill-health and disability through music-making, and creating training and employment opportunities for a new young workforce of healthcare musicians across northwest England.
INCLUSIVE mUSIC
Ros has over 25 years’ experience in using live music with children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, devising and leading live music programmes for use in a range of educational and therapeutic settings.
Research
Ros’ PhD is a reflexive study of her professional practise as a hospital musician. Contextualised through theoretical frameworks of ethnomusicology and medical ethnomusicology, Ros’ research examines her own approach to music interaction with children and young people within communities of health and disability, from early work developing music-making programmes for children with profound disabilities and sensory impairments through to her award-winning practise as a musician working in hospital settings . This research enabled a deeper understanding of her approach to musical interaction in hospital and health related contexts, and disseminated new knowledge on processes of therapeutic musical interaction. Ros’s research contextualised her practice through study of non-western performance and healing practices, examination of models of therapeutic music-making and processes of embodiment, and study of concepts of time and space during processes of performance and musical interaction.
Ros began her musical studies as an undergraduate at The Royal Northern College of Music; from there she was awarded a bursary from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama to study on the highly respected Performance and Communication Skills Post-Graduate Course under Peter Renshaw; this experience became the inspiration for her future career.
Prior to her PhD, Ros was awarded a distinction for her master’s degree in Performance as Research (SOAS). Here she specialised in the Klezmer music of the Meron Tradition. During her time at SOAS she was supported by the Jewish Music Institute through a Joe Loss Scholarship.
Ros has presented on her research in the UK, Ireland and America.
“Some of the most beautiful clarinet playing I have ever heard.”
“Thanks for such a fab day! You facilitated it all beautifully!”
“Some of the most beautiful clarinet playing I have ever heard.”
“Thanks for such a fab day! You facilitated it all beautifully!”
Ros Hawley 