Dr Karen Wise

Dr Karen Wise is Research Fellow and joined the Guildhall School in 2013. She is a psychologist, teacher and classical mezzo soprano. She has published on the psychology of singing, with a particular focus on singing difficulties in untrained and ‘non-singing’ or self-defined ‘tone deaf’ adults. The other major area of her work is in the psychology of performance in professional and student musicians, from practising and creativity to audience-performer relationships. Her work at the Guildhall School has included collaborative research projects with Britten Sinfonia and English Touring Opera. Karen teaches on the Guildhall School’s doctoral programme, providing research training and supervision, and is a psychology tutor for the MA in Music Therapy. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the British Psychological Society, and serves on the committee of the Society for Education and Music Psychology Research (SEMPRE). 

Karen is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘Finding a voice: The art and science of unlocking the potential of adult non-singers’, having been awarded an Early Career research grant in collaboration with Professor Andrea Halpern (Bucknell University, USA). The 33-month project, beginning in April 2016, investigates the ways in which adults who believe themselves unable to sing can best be supported to develop their skills and participate in musical activities. With a team of vocal teachers, a composer-animateur and an app developer, it brings together research and practice to understand adults’ singing journeys and development.

Previously, Karen was a Research Associate in the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP), at the University of Cambridge, and an Academic Tutor on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at the Royal Northern College of Music. Prior to that she was a Teaching Fellow in the School of Psychology at Keele University, where was awarded a PhD in Psychology for her thesis ‘Understanding tone deafness: a multicomponential analysis of perception, cognition, singing and self-perceptions in adults reporting musical difficulties’. Karen received a 2006 Young Researcher Award from the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music. As an undergraduate she studied music at the University of York, and subsequently trained as a singer at the Royal Northern College of Music, where her prizes included the Brigitte Fassbaender Award for Lieder. Her experience as a professional singer and singing teacher inspires and informs her academic work, and she continues to perform as a soloist in oratorio, opera and concerts.