DrEmma Kavanagh

Emma Kavanagh is Assistant Professor of Historical Musicology at University College Dublin. Her research focuses on opera and musical culture in France between the Revolution and the First World War, with a particular interest in the Belle Époque (1871-1914). Her research is published in Dix-Neuf, Cambridge Opera Journal, and the Journal of Musicological Research, with review articles in Romance, Revolution and Reform and Nineteenth-Century Music Review. She is now working on her first book project, provisionally titled Music, Social Movement and Working Life in Belle Époque Paris, 1871-1914.

Emma is also interested in the work of women composers, and recently published an online press collection with the France: Musiques, Cultures network dedicated to the criticism of Louise Bertin’s final opera, La Esmeralda (1836).

Prior to her current role at UCD, Emma held an ingénieure post on the AixOPERA project at Aix-Marseille Université, a French Embassy Visiting Fellowship at Sorbonne Université’s Institut de Recherche en Musicologie, and a Career Development Fellowship at Lincoln College, Oxford.

As well as her scholarship and teaching, Emma enjoys any opportunity to combine research with forward-facing work in broadcasting and public engagement. She also writes programme notes for the BBC and its affiliated orchestras, including for the BBC Proms since 2024. She is the lead curator of an anniversary exhibition dedicated to the composer, Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956), which will take place later this year at the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (24 October 2026 - 16 January 2027).

At UCD, Emma is a member of the School of Music's Staff-Student Committee and serves on the board of the UCD Symphony Orchestra. She is also a member of the UCD Humanities Institute.