Staff
Dr Patrick Zuk, PhD (Dunelm), MA (HETAC), BA (NUI)
Contact Dr Patrick Zuk (email at patrick.zuk@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
On completion of his undergraduate studies, Patrick Zuk worked for a number of years as a freelance composer and pianist. He has composed orchestral, vocal, choral and chamber music, which has received performances by the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the BBC Singers and other prominent ensembles. As a pianist, he specialised in chamber music and vocal accompaniment, performing extensively in Ireland and making appearances at festivals in America and Scandinavia. Before taking up his present post at Durham, he also taught at several Irish third-level music institutions.
In recent years, Zuk's research has predominantly focussed on music in Russia and the former Soviet Union - a subject on which he teaches an undergraduate module at Durham. At present, he is working on a major study of Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881-1950), a senior contemporary of Prokofiev and Shostakovich and a major figure of his period, whose work has received comparatively little attention from Western scholars to date. In March 2012, he was awarded a grant from the British Academy/The Sir Ernest Cassel Trust Fund to assist with the cost of undertaking archival research in connection with this project. His article 'Nikolay Myaskovsky and the events of 1948' appeared in the February 2012 issue of Music and Letters, and he has presented papers on the music of Myaskovsky and his contemporaries at international conferences in the UK, US, Germany and the Russian Federation.
Zuk's research interests also include the Irish art music tradition. In 2007 he and his Durham colleague Prof Jeremy Dibble were awarded AHRC funding for a major research project on the development of Irish music in the twentieth century, which ran until December 2010 (further information about this project can be found at http://www.dur.ac.uk/music/ahrcirishmusicproject). He is co-editor, together with Séamas de Barra, of a series of monographs on Irish composers issued by Field Day Publications, Dublin in conjunction with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He contributed a study of Raymond Deane (b. 1953) to the series in 2006 and is currently completing a second volume on A. J. Potter (1918-1980).
In May 2011 Patrick Zuk received one of Durham University's prestigious Excellence in Teaching and Learning Awards in recognition of his outstanding contribution to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in the Music Department.
Conference organisation
First International Conference on Irish Music and Musicians, University of Durham, 12-15 July 2010
International Conference on Music in Russia and the Soviet Union: Reappraisal and Rediscovery, University of Durham, 11-14 July 2011
Publications
Books: authored
- Zuk, Patrick. (2006). Raymond Deane. Dublin: Field Day Publications.
Books: edited
- Dibble, Jeremy (2010). Michele Esposito. Field Day Music. Dublin: Field Day Publications/Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame.
- Cox, Gareth (2010). Seóirse Bodley. Field Day Music. Dublin: Field Day Publications/Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame.
Journal papers: academic
- Zuk, Patrick (2012). Nikolay Myaskovsky and the Events of 1948. Music and Letters 93(1): 61-85.
- Zuk, Patrick (2010). Translating national identity into music: Representations of 'Traditional Ireland' in A. J. Potter's television opera Patrick. Études irlandaises 35(2): 81-97.
- Zuk, Patrick. (2004). Words for Music Perhaps? Irishness, Criticism and the Art Tradition. Irish Studies Review 12(1): 11-29.