Christopher Price

Chris Price is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Music and Performing Arts. He also pursues a lively career as a professional musician; his work as a Tenor Lay Clerk in the Cathedral Choir at Canterbury has included recordings, BBC radio and TV broadcasts, and international tours, notably to the USA, Holland, Italy and Norway. In addition to this, he undertakes regular professional work as singer and conductor in the area. His specialist interests include the music of the English Reformation; the archives of the Canterbury Catch Club; the music of Canterbury-based composer Alan Ridout; and the songs of such humourists as Flanders and Swann, Noel Coward, Jake Thackeray and Richard Stilgoe. In 2018 he completed his PhD with Durham University, published in book form by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in early 2019 under the title "The Canterbury Catch Club 1826: Music in the Frame".

The large collection of vocal and instrumental music, formerly belonging to the Canterbury Catch Club and presently housed in the Cathedral Library, contains work of great variety, quality and wit. Whilst some of it is well-known and presently in print, much seems to have either never been printed or has long since been deleted from publishers’ catalogues. Part of Chris's work has been a process of sifting through the extensive repertoire to bring some of the more deserving pieces back into the public domain, so that they may once again be enjoyed by audiences and performers (online perusal of scores and recordings; live performance; public lectures; or an authentic re-creation of an evening with the Canterbury Catch Club in a local venue). Some of this work may be seen at www.canterburycatchclub.org. He has also edited a book of catches and glees from the Canterbury Collection, entitled "As Thomas Was Cudgell'd One Day by his Wife". He has given conference papers on this and related subjects throughout the UK and further afield, in Venice, St Petersburg, Xi'an, Hong Kong, Athens, and Barcelona.