David Conway (music historian)
David Allen Conway is a British music historian. Born in London, and educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, he studied economics and psychology as an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge and later obtained a PhD degree under the supervision of John Klier at University College London, where he has been since 2008 an Honorary Research Fellow. He is the brother of the journalist Barbara Conway.
In 2012 his book Jewry in Music was published by Cambridge University Press. It "analyses why and how Jews, virtually absent from western art music until the end of the eighteenth century, came to be represented in all branches of the profession as leading figures – not only as composers and performers, but as publishers, impresarios and critics." The book was positively reviewed by musicologist Tina Frühauf and on the BBC Radio programme Music Matters.
In the academic year 2019–20 Conway was a Polonsky Visiting Fellow at Oxford University. He contributes to journals including Slavonic and East European Review, The Wagner Journal and Jewish Renaissance.
In the 1980s, he and his Czechoslovak-born wife Nadia were elected councillors of the London Borough of Enfield. From 1991 to 2016 Conway acted as a Senior Expert for the European Commission in development aid projects in the countries of the former Soviet Union. He is a founder and director of the music festival Levočské babie leto in Levoča, Slovakia, and since 2018 Chair of the opera company HGO.Publications
Conway's publications include:
