Rate My Professor Rosalind Halton

Associate Professor Rosalind Halton is a distinguished harpsichordist and researcher in Italian baroque music at the University of Newcastle, Department of Fine Art and Music, within the Arts faculty. She earned her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford on the analysis of Haydn's music, supported by a British Commonwealth Scholarship, a B.A. Honours from the University of Otago, and studied harpsichord with David Ledbetter and Colin Tilney. Her academic career spans Lecturer in Music Performance and Senior Lecturer at the University of New England from 1986 to 1999, where she coordinated performance programs and acted as Head of Department, followed by Senior Lecturer from 1999 to 2010 and Associate Professor since 2010 at the University of Newcastle. Halton has supervised seven Ph.D. completions and twelve Master's degrees on topics including baroque performance practice and pedagogy, and frequently examines higher degrees for Australian universities. She has convened honours programs, coordinated music electives on baroque and classical performance, and served on school research committees.

Halton's research focuses on Alessandro Scarlatti's cantatas, historically informed performance practice, French harpsichord repertoire, and source studies of 17th-18th century music. Key publications include "A Microcosm of Italian Cantata Composition in the 1690s: The Seven Settings of 'A voi che l'accendeste' by Francesco Maria Paglia" (2024), "'Choice things of value': The mysterious genesis and character of the VI concertos in seven parts attributed to Alessandro Scarlatti" (2015, with Michael Talbot, Eighteenth-Century Music), "'Senza cimbalo al tavolino': Alessandro Scarlatti and his 4 Sonate a quattro" (2015, Studi Musicali), and "Birthday tribute or cantata contest: Alessandro Scarlatti's 'A Voi Che L'Accendeste'" (2013). She edited two volumes of Scarlatti's unpublished works for A-R Editions and over 30 pieces for the Web Library of Seventeenth-Century Music. Creative outputs feature CD recordings: The French Harpsichord (ABC Classics, 1997, Soundscapes award winner), Louis Couperin and Friends (2005), and Venere, Adone e Amore: Serenatas and Cantatas of Alessandro Scarlatti (2007). An Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities since 2013, she performs solo and with ensembles across Australia, Europe, Canada, and New Zealand, broadcasts on ABC Classic FM, and holds editorial roles on Musicology Australia and Journal of Music Research Online.