Chris Evans

• BA, University of Wales (1985)
• Post Graduate Certificate of Education, University College London Institute of Education (1986)
• MA by Research, University of Birmingham (2020)

• I am a music graduate from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where I also studied viola with Geoff Yorke.
• After early retirement I decided to go back to the world of academia and completed an MA by Research at the University of Birmingham in 2019 under the supervision of Dr Nicholas Attfield and Dr Ben Earle. My research topic was based on the life and music of the largely forgotten Dutch-Jewish composer Sim Gokkes who was murdered in Auschwitz and whose work was mostly looted and destroyed by the Nazis during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands

Thirty-three years as a Head of Music in numerous comprehensive schools in London and Cornwall. I also worked as a GCSE and A Level examiner/moderator.

Nazi antisemitism had a devastating effect on the annihilation of Dutch-Jewish composers during the Holocaust period, and it is often assumed that this phenomenon did not really exist in the world of Dutch music before this. My research focuses on the role that antisemitism and Jewish exclusion played in music in the Netherlands after the Jewish emancipation of 1796.

• Member of De Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis (KVNM)
• Frequent research visits to the Nederlands Muziek Instituut and Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, Netherlands
• Collaborative work through the ‘Forbidden Music Regained’ project coordinated by the Leo Smit Foundation in Amsterdam