Mr Dominic Daula
BMus (distinction) Hons (first class) Cape Town, MMus (distinction) RNCM, Manchester
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3825-8950
Dominic was born in East London, where he began piano lessons aged 12 under the tutelage of Dr Widor du Toit. While in Du Toit’s studio, Dominic obtained accolades in local competitions and eisteddfodau, most notably the award of second prize in the Eastern Cape Youth Music Competition of 2011. In 2012, Dominic was placed 16th out of 7300 entrants in the De Beers English Olympiad, whereupon he was awarded a full scholarship to Rhodes University, an institution he joined in 2022 as a Lecturer in the Department of Music and Musicology.
Dominic elected to study music at the University of Cape Town, where he is currently a late-stage PhD candidate in Musicology under the supervision of James May. Accolades from this institution include the prestigious Harry Crossley Research Fellowship and the Robert Andrews prize for piano performance.
In 2019, Dominic was awarded an MMus in solo piano performance with distinction by the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, with the support of the University of Cape Town’s prestigious Scarbrow Bursary for Overseas Studies and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. There, he was mentored by Richard Ormrod (piano), Roger Hamilton (harpsichord) and David Horne (research). In April 2018, whilst studying at the RNCM, Dominic was invited to take up the editorship of British Music: The Journal of the British Music Society (ISSN 0958-5664), a position he relinquished in February 2022. During his editorship, Dominic introduced peer review measures and an essay competition for student researchers, which attracted both established and emerging scholars to the publication.
Dominic’s research activity comprises the presentation of conference papers at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester as well as the Annual Congress of the South African Society for Research in Music (SASRIM); he has also delivered an invited talk on South African Piano Music at the NewMusicSA Indaba which took place at the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. (NewMusicSA is the South African branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music.) Other outputs have been published by TEMPO (Cambridge University Press), the Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa (Taylor & Francis), and the Royal Musical Association. Dominic has presented lecture recitals on works by Alan Bush (at the University of Cape Town) and on the application of hexachords in Fantasias by Byrd and Froberger (at the RNCM), and has been both discussant and performer in the workshop and lecture recital titled 'Performing and Editing Couperin' as part of the RNCM’s prestigious Sir John Manduell Research Forum Series.
Active as a recitalist and chamber musician, Dominic has performed on national platforms in South Africa. Venues include the Youngblood Gallery in Cape Town, the South Campus Auditorium at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, the North-West University School of Music and Conservatory in Potchefstroom as part of the School's concert series, as well as at the University of Cape Town. In Manchester, Dominic performed at the RNCM's Chamber Music Festival and annual concert series.
Publications
“Mapping the Compositional Process of Alan Bush’s Final Piano Sonata”, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle. (Submitted and Under Review.)
“Review: Malcolm Arnold – Catalogue of Works (compiled by Poulton)”, British Music 43 (2021): 166-168. British Music Society. https://www.britishmusicsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/9-DD-10-02-22.pdf.
“Review: Arnold van Wyk – The Mature Piano Music”, Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa 18, no.1 (2021): 151-154. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.2989/18121004.2021.2020969.
“Alan Bush”, Tempo 69, no. 271 (January 2015): 93-94. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298214000813.
Significant Creative Output:
“Modes of Expression, A Piano Recital by Dominic Daula”, School of Music and Conservatory, North-West University, Potchefstroom, 17 October 2021. Duration: 86 minutes
“Guest recital: South African piano music”, NewMusicSA Indaba, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, 6 October 2018. Duration: 80 minutes.
“RNCM Chamber Music Festival”, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 9-11 March 2018. Contribution to the festival: 45 minutes.
“Harpsichord Recital”, Carole Nash Recital Room, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 31 January 2018. Duration: 40 minutes.
“Dominic Daula (piano) performs the Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach”, Baxter Concert Hall, Rondebosch, 18 September 2017. Duration: 60 minutes.
“Music Sacred and Profane: Music for Two Pianos by Messiaen and Stravinsky”, Baxter Concert Hall, Rondebosch, 20 June 2017. Duration: 80 minutes.
Conference Papers, Fora, Invited Talks, and Lecture-Recitals.
“Multiple visages: Alternative Sources Pertaining to the Fourth (and the rumoured Fifth) Piano Sonata(s) by Alan Bush” (paper presented at the RNCM Student Research Conference, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 24 June 2019. Duration: 20 minutes.
“Performing and Editing Couperin” (speaker and performer, RNCM François Couperin Day, The Sir John Manduell Research Forum Series, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 14 November 2018). Duration: 25 minutes.
“South African Piano Music of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries” (invited talk, NewMusicSA Indaba, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, 6 October 2018). Duration: 45 minutes.
“Stylus Phantasticus: An Investigative Study of the Hexachord in Fantasias by Byrd and Froberger” (lecture-recital, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 15 February 2018). Duration: 30 minutes.
“Works by Alan Bush” (lecture-recital, University of Cape Town, 10 August 2016). Duration: 90 minutes.
“A Case Study of John Ireland’s Greenways (1937) for Piano and its Similarities to the Baroque Dance Suites” (paper presented at the Ninth Annual Congress of the South African Society for Research in Music, University of Cape Town, 16 July 2015). Duration: 20 minutes.
Edited Collections
British Music 43 (2021). 190pp. 978 1 870536 43 1.
British Music 42 (2020). 76pp. ISBN 978 1 870536 42 4.
British Music 41, no. 2 (2019). 68pp. ISBN 978 1 870536 77 6.
British Music 41, no. 1 (2019). 69pp. ISBN 978 1 870536 41 7.
British Music 40, no. 2 (2018). 60pp. ISBN 978 1 870536 40 0.
British Music 39, no. 2 (2017) / 40, no. 1 (2018) (double edition), 54pp. ISBN 978 1 870536 76 9.