Heather Professor of Music

The Heather Professor of Music is the title of an endowed chair at the University of Oxford. The post and the funding for it come from a bequest by William Heather (c. 1563 – 1627). Following the example of his friend William Camden who had left property to fund the establishment of a chair of history at Oxford in 1622, Heather founded a music lecture at Oxford and proposed to present the university "with some instruments and music books to promote a weekly music practice". He included specific instructions for music practice on Thursday afternoons during term times (except during Lent) and that there should be a Master of the Musicke. This master was to look after the musical instruments and the music books and to undertake rehearsals and provide both a theoretical and practical training in music.[1][2][3][4]

The chair is linked to a fellowship of Wadham College.

The names of many of the Heather Professors have been memorialised in street names in the suburb of New Marston, Oxford. These include Nicholson Road, Goodson Walk, Hayes Close, Crotch Crescent, Ouseley Close, Stainer Place, Parry Close, Hugh Allen Crescent, Westrup Close. William Heather is himself remembered in Heather Place.

List of Heather Professors of Music

References
  1. Wollenberg, Susan (1981-1982) Music in 18th-Century Oxford, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association Vol. 108, pp. 69-99
  2. Mateer, David (January 2008). "Heather, William (c.1563–1627)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  3. Deutsch, David (2015) British Literature and Classical Music: Cultural Contexts 1870-1945, Bloomsbury Publishing
  4. Fauvel, John, Raymond Flood and Robin J. Wilson (2006) Music and Mathematics: From Pythagoras to Fractals Oxford University Press

Other references
  • 'The Heather Professor of Music, 1626-1976: Exhibition in the Divinity School, October 1976' (Bodleian Library pamphlet)
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