Dave Camlin is a musician based in west Cumbria, UK. His practice spans performance, composition, education, community music and research. He performs in various guises and leads a number of community choirs in the Natural Voice (NVN) tradition, grounded in a belief that music is about the ‘performance’ of human relationships as much as it is the performance of musical ‘works’.
Dave’s philosophy also suggests that music making is also about the ‘performance’ of ethical (post-)humanist values – love, reciprocity, democratic equality – which are important foundations of a more hopeful and sustainable human future. As a form of social ecology, music making invokes the civic imagination, and represents part of a social solution to ecological challenges, animating values which are antithetical to capitalist attitudes of domination and competition.
Dave won the National Trust’s ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ in 2019 for his AHRC / Arts Council England funded mountain-top singing project, The Fellowship of Hill and Wind and Sunshine. He is Lecturer in Music Education at the Royal College of Music and Trinity-Laban Conservatoire in London and was Head of Higher Education and Research at Sage Gateshead from 2010-19.
Dave’s research focuses on group singing, music health and wellbeing, musician education and community music, pioneering the use of ‘distributed ethnography’ as a method for research into cultural phenomena. Recent publications include a monograph entitled Music Making and Civic Imagination, guest editor for a special issue of International Journal of Community Music on music making and sustainable futures, and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He enjoys an international reputation as an academic musician, giving regular guest lectures around the world.
Dave was a trustee of the Natural Voice Network (NVN) from 2015-19 and co-chair of the Special Interest Group (SIG) in singing and mental health for the March Network 2018-19, and is currently a trustee of the UK community music network Sound Sense.
He leads many outdoor music events, was founding director of music organisation SoundWave, and a co-founder of the Solfest and Cumberlandia music festivals.
Find out more at : http://www.davecamlin.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dave.camlin
