About
Marion Leonard is Reader and Director of Research in the Department of Music. Prior to this she was BA Director of Studies for Music (2017-2022), leading on the enhancement of the undergraduate student experience. She is a member of the Institute of Popular Music and has published broadly in the field of popular music studies with particular focus on the areas of heritage and gender.
Her current research is focussed on how music histories are curated within heritage settings. Her research interest developed while working on a two-year secondment to National Museums Liverpool as lead curator for The Beat Goes On, an exhibition about Merseyside’s popular music history, shown at World Museum Liverpool (2008 - 2009) as part of Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture celebrations. Following this, she led a research project funded by the AHRC (Beyond Text programme) in partnership with the V&A and National Museums Liverpool. The project investigated the practical and theoretical issues involved with collecting and representing popular music in museums.
She is author of journal articles, book chapters and the monograph Gender in the Music Industry (Ashgate, 2007). She is contributor to and co-editor of The Beat Goes On: Liverpool, Popular Music and the Changing City (Liverpool University Press, 2010) and Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places (Routledge, 2014).
She has held the post of Membership Secretary and Treasurer of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) International Executive. She is a former member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College.