Dr Jackie Walduck

Jackie Walduck is a composer and vibraphone player, whose work explores the meeting points between composition and improvisation, and their impact on ensemble performance. She has performed across the UK, Europe and in the Middle East, with musicians as diverse as the Philharmonia, Sinfonia Viva, Kala Ramnath, and the Royal Army Band of Oman. She composes and leads The Academy of St Martin in the Fields’ orchestra with homeless men and women, The Seymore Orchestra. Her collaborative film score for The Dress (Maggie Ford) was premiered at Cannes Film Festival (2008).
After completing her PhD at City University, she began her teaching career at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she taught on the Performance and Communication Skills course alongside Peter Wiegold, Peter Renshaw and Sean Gregory. She created the Research module on the postgraduate course there, partially enabling the course to convert to a Masters Degree. Since then, she has led outreach projects for Trinity Laban and The Royal Academy of Music, where she is also a Guest Lecturer and Examiner for their Music in Community module. In 2017, she became an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM).

Jackie is an active researcher-practitioner, with interests in the following areas: Collaborative composition; Community Music; Improvisation; Musical creativities; socially-engaged music practice, Music and Health. It is her passion for research that has drawn her into Academic teaching, having developed a career as a composer, performer and socially-engaged practitioner. Her particular interests in community music include creative work with people affected by homelessness, autism spectrum conditions and sight loss.
Jackie is currently developing a research project in unsighted musical practices with Dr Ruth Herbert (University of Kent).

Jackie teaches Community Music, Collaborative composition, Orchestration, and Modules relating to music in culture and genre studies at the University of Kent. She takes a hands-on and creative approach to her work. In 2017 she built upon the Music in Education courses, collaborating with Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust to develop a student-led creative project for local children on a historic warship, leading to their ‘Discovery’ Arts Award.
In 2019, she received a Students’ Union ‘Above and Beyond’ award in 2019 for her teaching. In the same year, she became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Current PhD 2nd supervisor: Approaching Improvisation for the Twenty-First Century Musician.
Jackie is interested in supervising PhDs in improvisation, collaborative composition, community/socially engaged music, music and health.