Ms Diana Venegas Butt BMus (Hons), MMus

Postgraduate research student

Ms Diana Venegas Butt is a Postgraduate Researcher within the Music Department at the University of Southampton.

I began studying music at Southampton as an undergraduate student, before completing my Masters here in 2014. My Masters thesis explored rhythm and meter in Debussy’s keyboard waltzes, and was supervised by Dr Danuta Mirka. In the course of my Masters research, I noticed that a significant number of waltzes in 19th Century Paris were published by female composers. This became the foundations for my PhD thesis project at Southampton, which is a social, cultural, and musical analysis of dance music published by female composers in Paris in the long 19th Century. My research project has been funded by the University of Southampton’s Vice Chancellor’s Award, and is being supervised by Professor Mark Everist and Dr. Katrina Faulds.

While completing my PhD at the University of Southampton, I have also had the opportunity to teach on the Undergraduate first-year music history modules as a PGTA over the course of two years. The academic staff at Southampton are not only world-leaders in their fields, but also approachable and supportive of its research student community. The music department is also particularly strong for its engagement with visiting scholars from a variety of specialisms through its Hartley residency series.