The Society for Education Music and Psychology Research (Sempre) was founded in 1972 and is the only international society to have a distinctive mission to promote research on the application of the social sciences of psychology and education to music. As part of SEMPRE's charitable status, we have a programme of awards to support research and its dissemination across the world. Within our award programme, the Lifetime Achievement Award is open to senior colleagues who are considered by the SEMPRE Trustees to have made an outstanding contribution to the field.
2022 Sempre Lifetime Achievement Award recipients
Göran Folkestad
Dianna Kenny
Dianna has combined her love of academia, research, music, teaching, consultancy, and clinical practice over the course of her working life. Until her retirement from The University of Sydney, Australia after 31 years of service, she held conjoint Chairs as Professor of Psychology and Professor of Music.
Dianna was the founding Director of the Australian Centre for Applied Research in Music Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Prior to that appointment, she was Director, Postgraduate Studies, National Voice Centre, and Director, Work and Rehabilitation Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney. She has received awards for Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Higher Degree Research Supervision from The University of Sydney where she has graduated 47 PhD and Master by Research students in both psychology and music. She was also awarded lifetime membership of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) for services as Chair, case management committee, Sydney Branch, providing advocacy and advice to academic and general staff requiring industrial support in the workplace.
Dianna has been an invited visiting scholar to the Musik Hoschschule, University of Freiburg, Germany,
the Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg, Germany, the Communication, Culture & Information Technology (CCIT) Centre and Department of Psychology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, the College of Education and Special Education, University of Alaska Anchorage, Alaska, USA, and an invited distinguished scholar at James Cook University, Townsville and Cairns, North Queensland, Australia. She has been a visiting and Adjunct Professor at the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland, New Zealand, Macquarie University, and Boston University, USA.
Dianna was on the editorial boards of the Medical Problems of Performing Artists, Frontiers in Performance Psychology: Performance Science, Journal of New Music Research, International Journal of Stress Management, and the Australian Journal of Rehabilitation Counselling. She was also a regular reviewer for over 20 journals including Psychology of Music, Frontiers in Psychology, Musicae Scientiae, Logopedics, Phoniatrics and Vocology, Journal of Voice, Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, and Anxiety, Stress and Coping. Prior to joining The University of Sydney in 1988, Dianna enjoyed a 10-year career in teaching, school counselling, and specialist counselling for emotionally disturbed children with the NSW Department of Education. She is a fellow of the College of Counselling Psychologists of the Australian Psychological Society. She is currently a consultant psychologist, psychotherapist, marriage and family therapist, mediator, and family dispute resolution practitioner.
Dianna has a specialist practice working with musicians with music performance anxiety that is informed by the development of a theory of music performance anxiety based on psychoanalytic and current psychological theories of the emotion-based disorders. Her K-MPAI has been translated into 17 languages and has been applied in numerous research studies that confirm and further develop the underlying concept of the multidimensionality of music performance anxiety presented in her seminal text on the subject. Dianna also continues her lifelong work in developmental psychology. She has undertaken research and provided consultancy to government (including NSW Department of Juvenile Justice, Justice Health and NSW Department of Education) and non-government organisations (Youth Off the Streets; Public Interest Advocacy Centre; Youth Justice Coalition) to inform policy and practice in the care and management of children and young people, particularly disadvantaged and marginalised youth (e.g. at-risk youth, young offenders, students with learning needs, and young people coping with trauma) and has undertaken significant research on sexual offending in young offenders and developed a model that predicts recidivism of sexual offending. Dianna has served as the chair of ministerial steering committees for the NSW Department of Juvenile Justice and as member and A/Chair of ministerial reference groups on sex offending for the NSW Department of Corrective Services. She is an expert reviewer and report writer for the Office of the Department of Public Prosecutions in matters pertaining to child sexual abuse.
More recently, Dianna has developed a specialty in children and young people with gender dysphoria, in which capacity she presents invited submissions to government and the courts with respect to policy and practice both in Australia and the USA. Dianna is the author of eight books: Gender dysphoria in children and adolescents: Collected papers on the psychology, sociology and ethics of gender transition. Scholar’s Press, 2020; Children, sexuality, and child sexual abuse. East Sussex, UK: Routledge, 2018; Music performance anxiety: Theory, assessment, and treatment. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018; God, Freud and religion: The origins of fear, faith and fundamentalism. East Sussex, UK: Routledge, 2015; From Id to intersubjectivity: Talking about the talking cure with master clinicians: London: Karnac, 2014; Bringing up baby: The psychoanalytic infant comes of age. London: Karnac, 2013; The psychology of music performance anxiety. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011; and Young offenders on community orders: Health, welfare and criminogenic needs. Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press, 2008 (with Paul Nelson): three edited books, 35 book chapters, 184 peer reviewed journal articles, nine monographs, five encyclopedia entries, and seven articles in The Conversation, among others. Dianna continues to enjoy her role as a public intellectual, appearing in multiple media outlets in both print and visual formats.
Gary E. McPherson
Gary E. McPherson is the Ormond Professor of Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, the University of Melbourne. He studied music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, before completing a master of music education at Indiana University, a doctorate of philosophy at the University of Sydney and a Licentiate and Fellowship in trumpet performance through Trinity College, London. In 2021, he was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate - Artium Doctorem Honoris Causa - from Lund University Sweden. Gary has served as National President of the Australian Society for Music Education and President of the International Society for Music Education.
Gary co-founded Research Studies in Music Education and has served on the editorial boards of over 20 journals in music education and music psychology. He has published over 300 academic contributions including co-authored, edited and co-edited volumes for Oxford University Press: Music in Our Lives: Rethinking Musical Development, Ability and Identity; The Child as Musician: A Handbook of Musical Development; Musical Prodigies: Interpretations from Psychology, Education, Musicology and Ethnomusicology; The Oxford Handbook of Music Education; and The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance. His research interests are broad and his approach interdisciplinary. His most important research examines the acquisition and development of musical competence, and motivation to engage and participate in music from novice to expert levels. With a particular interest in the acquisition of visual, aural, and creative performance skills, he has attempted to understand more precisely how music students become sufficiently motivated and self-regulated to achieve at the highest level.
Michael Thaut
Sandra Trehub
Past Award Holders
Jeanne Bamberger
Jeanne Bamberger is Professor of Music and Urban Education emerita, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Adjunct Professor, Music Department, University of California, Berkeley.
Bamberger studied with Artur Schnabel (1943–46) and performed frequently in the US and Europe as piano soloist and in chamber music groups. She attended the University of Minnesota and Columbia University receiving her BA in philosophy and music (1948), and the University of California at Berkeley where she received her MA in music theory (1951).
Bamberger’s serious teaching career began at the University of Chicago where she taught music theory and a freshman seminar in Art, Music, and Literature (1955 to 1969). From 1970 to 2001 Bamberger was at MIT. During this period, in search of multiple paths to understanding learning and development, she became a member of several different departments in addition to the Music Department where she taught music theory and analysis (1970-2001). She was a researcher in the LOGO Lab (in the Department of Computer Science 1972-1975), and the Division for Study and Research in Education (1975-1995). Bamberger subsequently initiated and directed the Teacher Development Program in the MIT Department of Urban Studies. The program was intended for MIT undergraduates who wished to teach high school math and science in under-served urban settings. She retired from MIT in 2001, taught briefly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and, taking up residence in Berkeley, California (2005) is currently teaching Music Cognition as an Adjunct Professor, in the Department of Music, University of California, Berkeley.
Her books include: The Art of Listening: Developing Musical Perception (with H. Brofsky) (New York: Harper and Row, 1969;1972;1975;1979;1988); The mind behind the musical ear (Harvard University Press, 1995); Developing musical intuitions: A project-based introduction; to making and understanding music (Oxford University Press, 2000); Discovering the musical mind (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Recent chapters in books: (2016) “Growing Up Prodigies” In: G. McPherson (ed) The Child as Musician: A handbook of musical development. Oxford University Press; (2007) “Restructuring Conceptual Intuitions Through Invented Notations: From Path-Making to Map-Making” In: E. Teubal, J. Dockrell & L. Tolchinsky (eds) Notational knowledge: Developmental and historical perspectives. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers; (2007) “Changing Musical Perception Through Reflective Conversation.” In: R. Horowitz, Talking Texts. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Assoc.; (2006) “What develops in musical development?” In: G. MacPherson (ed.) The child as musician: Musical development from conception to adolescence. Oxford University Press; (2005) “How the conventions of music notation shape musical perception and performance.” In: D. Hargreaves, D.E. Miell, R. MacDonald (eds) Musical Communication. Oxford University Press; (2000) “Turning Music Theory on its Ear: Do we hear what we see; do we see what we say.” In: Multidisciplinary perspectives on musicality: The Seashore Symposium. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Recent Articles in Refereed Journals: (2015) “A Brief History of Music, Computers and Thinking: 1972-2015” In: Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education, 2015:3; (2011) “The Collaborative Invention of Meaning: A Short History of Evolving Ideas.” In: Psychology of Music, Volume 39 (1) 82–102; (2010) “Noting Time” In: Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online, Vol. 8; (2004) “Music as embodied mathematics: A study of a mutually informing affinity.” (with A. diSessa). In: International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning. 8: 123–160; (1996) “Turning music theory on its ear: Do we hear what we see:; do we see what we say?” In: International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning. Volume 1 #1: pp. 33-55.Rosamund Bourke†
Liora Bresler
Liora Bresler is a Professor Emerita at the College of Education, University of Illinois, Champaign, as well as the College of Fine and Applied Art; the Hedda Anderson Emerita Chair in Lund University, Sweden; and since 2007, a Professor II at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. Her areas of interest are qualitative research methodologies (including case-study, narrative and aesthetic-based inquiry); intellectual educational entrepreneurship in academia; and arts education curricula in formal and informal settings. Her current work focuses on qualitative research as aesthetic experience integrating mind, body, and spirit.
Bresler has published 150 papers and book chapters and has edited 17 special issues in such journals as Research Studies in Music Education, Educational Theory, Council of Research in Music Education, Visual Art Research, Visual Inquiry, and Arts Education Policy Review where she was the editor for international issues. She has authored and edited books on the arts in education, including Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds (Kluwer, 2004); the Internationa Handbook of Research in Arts Education (2007, Springer), the co-edited International research in education: Experience, theory and practice (2002, Peter Lang), the International Handbook of Creative Learning (Routledge, 2011); and The International Handbook of the Arts in Education (Routledge, 2015).
Bresler is the editor of the book series “Landscapes: Aesthetics, the arts and education” (Springer) and the co-founder (1999) of the International Journal of Education and the Arts. She has given keynote speeches, invited talks, seminars and short courses in thirty some countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas. Her work was translated into German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Finnish, Korean, and Chinese.
Teaching awards at the University of Illinois include the Distinguished Teaching Life-Long Career Award at the College of Education (2004), the University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2005), and the University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2018). Other awards include Distinguished Senior Scholar at the College of Education, University of Illinois (2014); Distinguished Fellow in the National Art Education Association (2010); the Edwin Ziegfeld Award for distinguished international leadership in art education by the United States Society for Education Through Art (2007); and The Lin Wright Special Recognition Award by The American Alliance for Theatre and Education (2007).
Irène Deliège†
Irène Deliège is a musician and cognitive scientist. She was born in January 1933 in Flanders, but has spent most of her life in French-speaking Brussels and Liège, Belgium. She is noted for her theory of Cue Abstraction, and for her work in establishing The European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music.
She was educated at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels from where she obtained a diploma in music. For 25 years, she worked as a classroom music teacher in the Belgian public (state-funded) school system.
Shortly after graduating she began to attend the courses music writing and harmony given by Profressor Andre Souris at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and as a result was invited to attend the Summer School for New Music in Darmstadt (Darmstädter Ferienkurse), where she met the Belgian musicologist Celestin Deliège, whom she married in 1954.
In 1979 she decided to return to study, and gained a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the Free University of Brussels (Université libre de Bruxelles), graduating in 1984. She was then invited by Professor Marc Richelle, Head of the Psychology Department at the University of Liège to establish a Unit for Research in Psychology of Music, in association with the Royal Conservatory of Brusselsand the Centre de Recherche et de la Formation musicales de Wallonie (CRFMW) founded by the composer Henri Pousseur. The Unit existed from 1986 until her retirement in 199?
Simultaneously with establishing the Unit, she embarked on PhD studies at Liège, gaining her PhD in 1991. Its title was L'organisation psychologique de l'écoute de la musique. Des marques de sedimentation indice, empreinte dans la representation mentale de l'oeuvre.' ' (The psychological organisation of musical listening).
Deliège's scientific work involved some of the first, and certainly some of the most influential, attempts to empirically test major predictions of the work of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff as laid out in their groundbreaking Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983). This work involved novel methods for measuring perception of medium- to large-scale structure, up to and including entire works; going substantially beyond most scientific work of the time which concentrated (and still, to a large extent does) on perception of small, disembodied musical fragments. Another important aspect of her work was a courageous exploration of these issues as applied to contemporary classical music, including atonal works, another challenge largely neglected in the wider field. She also made important contributions to the understanding of the development of musical perception through infancy and childhood.
Alf Gabrielsson†
Alf Gabrielsson was professor emeritus in psychology at Uppsala University, Sweden. He studied history, political science, psychology, history of art, and musicology at Uppsala University and organ playing at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm. He earned his PhD with a thesis on musical rhythm from Uppsala University in 1973 and also conducted research at the Department of Technical Audiology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. His research areas included musical rhythm, music performance, music experience, and audiology. He published numerous papers in scientific journals and books and served as consulting editor for Psychology of Music, Music Perception, Psychomusicology, and Musicæ Scientiæ. He edited a volume on Action and Perception in Rhythm and Music(1987), and published a comprehensive volume on Strong Experiences with Music – Music is much more than just music (2011).
Until his retirement in 2001 Gabrielsson held a professorship and taught general psychology and music psychology in the Department of Psychology at Uppsala University and at the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm. He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, served as President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) 1997-2000, organized the Third Triennial ESCOM Conference in Uppsala in 1997 and has been awarded the Honorary Life Membership of ESCOM and the SEMPRE Lifetime Achievement Award.
Alf Gabrielsson passed away on 24 May 2024, at the age of 87.
Susan Hallam MBE
Professor Susan Hallam is Emerita Professor of Education and Music Psychology at the UCL Institute of Education. She was awarded an MBE in the 2015 new year’s honours list for services to music education. She pursued careers as both a professional musician and a music educator before joining the Institute of Education, University of London in 1991. She joined Oxford Brookes as Professor of Education in January 2000 returning to the Institute of Education in January 2001. She has received research funding from the ESRC, DfE, the ScottishExecutive, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Nuffield Foundation, Performing Rights Society, the Christian Initiative Trust, CfBT, the Ministry of Defence, 4Children, EMI Sound Foundation, the Institute of Physics, SkillForce and several Local Authorities for a range of projects relating to attendance at school, exclusion from school, behaviour improvement, school-home links, ability grouping in primary and secondary schools, formative feedback in learning, instrumental music services and the evaluation of various educational initiatives. In addition she has undertaken research in relation to pedagogy in secondary and higher education, text understanding and conceptions of argument of post-graduate students, homework, learning in music and the effects of music on behaviour and studying.
She is the author of numerous books on education including Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Helping Schools to Promote Attendance (1995)(with Roaf, C.); Improving School Attendance (1996); Ability Grouping in Education (2001) (with Ireson, J.); Ability Grouping in Schools: a Literature Review (2002); Effective Pupil Grouping in the Primary School — a Practical Guide (2002) (with Ireson, J. & Davies, J.); Homework: the evidence (2004, 2018);Improving behaviour and attendance at school (2008)(with Rogers, L.) and The evidence relating to homework (forthcoming) . She has also published several books in relation to music education and music psychology including Instrumental Teaching: A Practical Guide to Better Teaching and Learning (1998), The Power of Music (2001) Music Psychology in Education (2005); Preparing for success: a practical guide for young musicians (2012 (with Gaunt, H.); Active ageing with music: Supporting well-being in the Third and Fourth Ages (2014) (with Creech, A., McQueen, H. and Varvarigou, M.), The impact of actively making music on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people: A research synthesis and as part of the Routledge series the psychology of everything The Psychology of Music (2019). She is editor of The Oxford Handbook of Psychology of Music (2009, 2016) (with Cross, I. & Thaut, M.) and Music Education in the 21st Century in the United Kingdom: Achievements, analysis and aspirations (2010) (with Creech, A.). In addition, she has over 200 other publications. She is a former Chair of the Education Section of the British Psychological Society, former treasurer of the British Educational Research Association, a former Institutional Auditor for the QAA and was for six years Dean of the Faculty of Policy and Society. She has been awarded lifelong membership of the British Psychological Society (for services to psychology) and of the International Society for Music Education (for service to music education). She has acted as consultant and advisor to numerous projects relating to research and practice for a wide range of bodies, public and private. She was editor of Psychology of Education Review from 1996–99, Learning Matters from 1997–2002, the Psychology of Music from 2001–2008 and is currently a co-editor of Music Performance Research.
David Hargreaves
David Hargreaves will retire in August 2017 from his positions as Professor of Education and Froebel Research Fellow at the University of Roehampton, London. He has also been Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychology and Speech Pathology at Curtin University, Western Australia.
He was Editor of Psychology of Music 1989–96, Chair of the Research Commission of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) 1994–6, and is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. His books, in psychology, education, the arts, and music have been translated into 16 languages. These include the recently-published Handbook of Musical Identities (co-edited with Raymond MacDonald and Dorothy Miell, Oxford UP, 2017), and The Psychology of Musical Development, co-authored with Alexandra Lamont, which is scheduled for publication by Cambridge UP in June 2017. This is a complete rethink and rewrite, 31 years later, of David’s book The Developmental Psychology of Music (1986).
David has appeared on BBC TV and radio as a jazz pianist and composer, and is organist on his local church circuit in Cambridgeshire. In 2004 he was awarded an honorary D.Phil. by the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. This was the first time such an award had been made by the University in the field of music education and was in recognition of his 'most important contribution towards the creation of a research department of music education' in the School of Music and Music Education in the University of Gothenburg.
Clifford K. Madsen
Clifford K. Madsen is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor in the Center for Music Research at The Florida State University and Coordinator of Music Education/ Music Therapy/ Contemporary Media. Dr. Madsen has taught applied music and public school music at all levels. He has authored or co-authored 13 books and is best known for Experimental Research in Music and its accompanying Workbook in Design and Statistical Tests now in its 3rd Edition and Teaching/ Discipline: Behavioral Principles Toward a Positive Approach now in its 5th Edition. Additionally, he has held major research appointments in both the American Music Therapy Association and the National Association for Music Education.
His research is in music perception/cognition, teacher preparation, learning and motivation. He is the first recipient of both the Senior Researcher Award granted by the Music Educators National Conference and the Award of Merit, the National Association for Music Therapy's highest recognition. He was also inducted into MENC’s Hall of Fame and given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Music Therapy Association for his work in research. Additionally, he received an Outstanding Music Therapy Pioneer Award for establishing on of five international models of music therapy from the World Federation of Music Therapy. He has also published over 200 research articles, given over 350 research presentations as well as given workshops in classroom management techniques to many professionals throughout the world.
Desmond Sergeant
Dr. Desmond Sergeant studied voice and piano at the Royal College of Music, London, and conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As a singer, he has appeared in many operatic roles, and has wide experience as a choral trainer, having directed many major works of the choral repertoire. He was Head of Music at Froebel College of Higher Education, and later at the University of Surrey, Roehampton. He has also taught in several universities in USA. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London.
He was founding editor of the journal 'Psychology of Music' and is a past chair of the Society for Education Music and Psychology Research (Sempre).
Research publications extend to fields of cognitive development, perception of serialism, and voice measurement (in collaboration with Prof. Graham Welch). Publications are mostly in English, but also appear in Spanish, Italian and Japanese. In 1987 he was nominated Distinguished Foreign Scholar by the Mid-America State University Association (MASUA). In 2004 he was awarded a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ by SEMPRE.
Desmond has a keen interest in theatre, and has written several musicals for young players.
John Sloboda
Professor John Sloboda is Research Professor at the Guildhall School, where he directs research on Understanding Audiences. He is also Emeritus Professor at Keele and was a staff member of the School of Psychology at Keele from 1974–2008, where he was Director of its Unit for the Study of Musical Skill and Development, founded in 1991.
John is internationally known for his work on the psychology of music. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and has been President of both the Psychology and General Sections of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, where he has served on the editorial board of its journal Musicae Scientiae. He is a member of the Society for Education and Music Psychology Research, and was Editor-in-Chief of its journal Psychology of Music from 1985–1989.
He was the recipient of the 1998 British Psychological Society's President's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge, and in 2004 was elected to Fellowship of the British Academy.
John has been Honorary Consultant to the AHRC Centre for Music Performance as Creative Practice, a network participant in Theatrum Mundi and a contributing researcher to the AHRC Knowledge Exchange Hub Creativeworks London. He was also a member of the Senior Management Group of the think-tank Oxford Research Group and co-founder of the Iraq Body Count Project, in which he retains active ongoing engagement, as well as co-directing the charity Every Casualty Worldwide.
His books include Handbook of Music and Emotion (co-edited with Patrik Juslin), and Exploring the Musical Mind, both published by Oxford University Press.
Johan Sundberg
Johan Sundberg, received his doctoral degree in Musicology at the Uppsala University in 1966. In 1979 he was awarded a personal chair in Music Acoustics at KTH, Stockholm, from which he retired in 2001. Since 1980 he is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. He has been rewarded the title Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of York, the University of Athens and the University of Liège.
His main research areas are the function, acoustics, and expressivity of the singing voice and the theory of music performance. He has published more than 340 scientific articles. His book Röstlära (The science of the Singing Voice), which has been translated into English, German, Japanese, and Portuguese, summarizes the status of voice research. He also has written a book on music acoustics (The Science of Musical Sounds, 1991) and has been the editor or co-editor of numerous proceedings.
He has supervised or co-supervised more than 20 doctoral students. He has organized a great number of courses on the function of the singing voice where theory has been combined with realtime feedback of various aspects of phonation.
He has coordinated a global celebration of the World Voice Day, which happens April 16 each year, now engaging more than 60 countries.