I am an independent researcher studying the social history of musical instruments. My 1997 Fellowship was Compiling a Guide to Wind Instruments Made in Venice and Tudor London.

Most major musical instrument collections include woodwinds with no maker's mark other than the symbol. Research suggested that these instruments may have had an association with the Bassano family, who came from Venice to work in the court of Henry VIII in London. No-one had made a comparative study of these instruments, and at the time of my research many musical instrument collections were using catalogues created during the 1920s, or had no catalogue at all. I was therefore keen to study these instruments in person to further our understanding of their origins.

Findings from my Fellowship travels to Italy, Germany, Austria and Belgium were published in A Checklist of Woodwind Instruments Marked !! (Galpin Society Journal, 52, April 1999, pp. 243-80) and the book Curtal, Dulcian, Bajon: A History of the Precursor to the Bassoon (St Albans, 2002). This book is now a standard work, and is widely cited and used by professional musicians and in many university teaching programmes worldwide.