Experiencing Music – Restoring the Spiritual

June Boyce-Tillman MBE read music at the University of Oxford and is Professor of Applied Music at the University of Winchester. She has published widely in the area of education, most recently on spirituality. Her doctoral research into children’s musical development has been translated into five languages. She has written about and organised events in the area of interfaith dialogue using music. She has held visiting fellowships at Indiana University and the Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts. She is an international performer, especially of the work of Hildegard of Bingen. Her large-scale works for cathedrals such as Winchester, Southwark and Norwich involve professional musicians and school children. She is a hymn writer and has written on and led workshops on music, healing, theology and spirituality and is the artistic convenor of the Winchester Centre for the Arts as Well-being. She is an Extraordinary Professor at North West University, South Africa. She is an ordained Anglican priest and an honorary chaplain to Winchester cathedral and received an MBE for her services to music and education.

• Contents: And Still I Wander … through Greek Mythology and the Idea of the Soul – The Development of Religionless Spirituality – The Cult of Creativity – The Development of a Phenomenography of the Musical Experience – A Place of Transformation: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – The Environment – Music and Expression – Musical Construction – Values in Musicking – Music and Christian Theology – Crossing a Threshold: Encountering the Spiritual – The Extrapersonal Dimension: The Use of the Musical Liminality as a Space for Peace and Justice Making – Radical Musical Inclusion: An Ecclesiology of Music – Orpheus Rediscovered: The Way Forward.

'June Boyce-Tillman brings her sharp intellect and broad knowledge of music, theology, spirituality, psychology and pedagogy to this book. It is a synthesis of many years of scholarship and thinking and is another rich contribution from her fertile mind. I trust it will stimulate rich dialogue and further research based on her theories.'(Dr Carol Scott-Kassner, music educator and spiritual counsellor) 'This book is an astonishing achievement: drawing on a broad range of sources, musicological, psychological, philosophical and theological, it constructs a challenging picture of how music, especially vocal music, embodies (literally) the deepest aspects of our humanity. Learning to sing is not acquiring a pleasant leisure activity but connecting with the world we inhabit in a fresh and life-giving way. A deeply enriching study.' (Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury)