Joe Snape (UK/Netherlands)

Life After Ertegun House

Since Ertegun House, I have pursued twin careers. As a composer and touring musician, my work has found homes with audiences all over the world, in places like Café Oto (London), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), Wonder Site (Tokyo), and The Kitchen (NYC). Closer to home, I remain a founding member of the UK arts and education charity Hand Of, and run a number of informal community projects in the Berlin art scene. As an aspiring scholar, I’m in the second half of a PhD at New York University. Here, I’m busy exploring with undergraduates how making musical art can help produce new modes of critical enquiry, and working on a dissertation that examines the historiographical logics of stories we tell about western music technologies, with a particular emphasis on the ‘weirdnesses' occluded within standard media histories. I’m pursuing this exciting work under the tutelage of Professor J. Martin Daughtry.

Oxford in its own right is a fantastic place to study, but the chance to undertake this learning as an Ertegun scholar, encouraged and supported every day to exchange ideas, collaborate on projects, and plumb the depths of our own and each others’ thinking, was a dream. I expected a lot when I arrived, but my two years as an Ertegun scholar proved to be more extraordinary than I could have hoped.

I’m always happy to field questions from current or prospective students seeking advice on preparing applications or the future pursuit of their careers.