Trevor Wiggins

Trevor studied piano with Audrey Ayliffe and Trumpet with Peter Reeve at Goldsmiths’ College and while based in London worked semi-professionally with the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the London Bach Society, conducted by Paul Steinitz.

Trevor Wiggins has been Director of Music at Dartington College of Arts since 1991. His role includes overall responsibility for all aspects of music/sonic arts within the college including 5 BA courses, MA and postgraduate research, and he is a member of the college senior management team.

During his time at Dartington, he has developed innovative new awards that offer students wide possibilities for international exchange or professional placement and evolved the way in which music at Dartington includes the widest range of music found in the contemporary world.

His current research work draws on field research in Ghana, West Africa and explores the interface between ethnomusicology, music education and issues for the transmission of culture. He is currently working on a book about the xylophone tradition of the Dagara people of Nandom, Ghana, an edited volume looking at the place of music in children’s lives around the world, and an online research journal in World Music.

Trevor’s training as a musician included qualifying as a teacher as well as BA and MA awards in western music and music analysis. Becoming increasingly interested in the music of Africa in the 1980s, he organised a staff exchange and taught at the University of Ghana in 1988-9, also using the opportunity to learn traditional drum and xylophone music. This led to a number of articles and the book/CD Xylophone Music from Ghana (White Cliffs Media, 1992). He then returned to Ghana in 1994-5 to follow up some of his previous work in learning different drum pieces but also to carry out further study of the recreational xylophone music of the Dagara people around Nandom in the Upper West region.

Since 1995, he has returned to Ghana at regular intervals to follow up and develop his research, looking both at the traditions of specific peoples in Ghana and the ways these traditions change and the processes involved.

In parallel with his concerns for accurately documenting the sonic world, his writings have reflected on the ways in which people in Ghana understand and use music and dance for both everyday work and rites of passage, and a wider concern for world music and education, considering world music both as a western phenomenon and as an influence and concept outside the western education system. These concerns can be seen in publications such as two chapters in Composing the Music of Africa: Composition, Interpretation and Realisation. Ashgate, (1999), ‘Cultivating Shadows in the Field: Challenges for Traditions in Institutional Contexts’ in Cultural Diversity in Music: Directions and challenges for the 21st century. Australian Academic Press (2005) and “Le ‘musiche del mondo’ nel sistema d’insegnamento occidentale” in Enciclopedia della musica, Vol. 5 L’unita della musica. Einaudi, 2005 (also published in French by Actes-Sud). The extent of Trevor’s global reach and engagement with a worldwide audience can be seen from the geographical distribution of the publishers. At the same time as publishing, Trevor continues to be active as a performer and teacher of Ghanaian music who has been invited to numerous countries, both teaching and examining the processes and the nature of learning that this engages with.

Trevor’s PhD thesis (1998 University of Plymouth) drew together a range of his publications, demonstrating the ways in which the apparent diversity of approaches and media formed a coherent contemporary enquiry into music in Ghana that also provided a mirror for more universal issues of tradition, transmission and learning.

Prior to his time at Dartington, Trevor trained teachers for 8 years at Bretton Hall College. This has given me a wide experience of interacting with children of different ages and helping them structure their goals, learning and ambitions. Trevor has been described as an inspirational teacher by both colleagues and students and as known for his sympathetic approach and attention to detail that makes people feel special and motivates them to work well.