Kate Kennedy

Dr Kate Kennedy is a British biographer, librettist, and broadcaster known for her work on twentieth-century music, literature, the First World War, women's composition, and illness narratives. She is a Research Fellow in Life-Writing at Wolfson College, Oxford, and the Associate Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing.

Kate was born in the UK and developed a passion for literature and music at a young age. She pursued her education in these fields, eventually holding research fellowships in Music and English at the University of Cambridge. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Kate's most notable work, Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney (2021), published by Princeton University Press, delves into the life of the war poet and composer Ivor Gurney. This biography, the result of many years of research, is the first to examine all aspects of Gurney's work and life, from the trenches of the First World War to his time in a lunatic asylum. The book was on the shortlist for the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize.

Kate has also co-edited Lives of Houses (2020) with Dame Hermione Lee, a collection of essays published by Princeton University Press. The book includes contributions from notable writers such as Simon Armitage and Julian Barnes and explores the significance of the houses of famous literary and historical figures.

In addition to her writing, Kate is a regular broadcaster on the BBC, particularly on Radio 3. She appears on programs such as Music Matters, Proms Plus, Record Review, Building a Library, Essential Classics, Composer of the Week, and The Essay. Her Sunday Feature documentaries have been selected for Pick of the Year by Radio 4. She was awarded the Oxford Vice Chancellor's Award for Public Engagement with Research in 2017.

Kate has published widely on the arts. She is the co-editor of The Silent Morning: Culture and the Armistice, 1918 (2014) and the editor of Literary Britten (2019). She has also authored the play The Fateful Voyage.

Through her work, Kate Kennedy combines her deep knowledge of music and literature, bringing to life the narratives of historical figures and exploring the intersections between their personal lives and creative works.

In August 2024, Bloomsbury will publish Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound. This work is part memoir and part biography, exploring musicians' relationships with their cellos and tracing the lives of these instruments across Europe and Russia.

Photo credit: Oxford Centre for Life-writing