Research and Innovation Lead School iof Journalism Media and Performance
School of Arts and Media
Music Performance, Aesthetics, Music Composition, Turner Prize, Music Improvisation, Music History and Contexts
Les Gillon is a musician, writer and academic based at UCLan. He’s worked as a guitarist, bassist, vocalist, composer and songwriter since the 1970s and has taught performance and composition to young musicians for over twenty years. He records and performs regularly in a variety of ensembles, playing types of music that range from experimental improvisation to traditional British folk music. This site features his current projects Fez, Fire Tower 4 and Ghost School.
Together with Professor Ewa Mazierska and Music Industry Consultant Tony Rigg he is a Co-Director of the Music Research @UCLan, which has published a series of edited collections on the future of the music industry and been involved in organising conferences featuring international panels of academics and industry profe
more...Les Gillon is a musician, writer and academic based at UCLan. He’s worked as a guitarist, bassist, vocalist, composer and songwriter since the 1970s and has taught performance and composition to young musicians for over twenty years. He records and performs regularly in a variety of ensembles, playing types of music that range from experimental improvisation to traditional British folk music. This site features his current projects Fez, Fire Tower 4 and Ghost School.
Together with Professor Ewa Mazierska and Music Industry Consultant Tony Rigg he is a Co-Director of the Music Research @UCLan, which has published a series of edited collections on the future of the music industry and been involved in organising conferences featuring international panels of academics and industry professionals. He is also Chair of the Preston Jazz and Improvisation Festival Committee.
In addition to his research in the field of music, he also writes on aesthetics and the visual arts. His recent monograph The Uses of Reason in the Evaluation of Artworks: Commentaries on the Turner Prize (Palgrave, 2017) uses the Turner Prize as a case study, in order to explore fundamental questions about the nature, purpose and value of art. He is also active in practice-based music research that explores composition and improvisation techniques, the use of non-western music traditions and interdisciplinary collaborations with dance, moving image and spoken word practitioners.
PhD. The Uses of Reason in Artistic Evaluation 2016
MA (Dist.) Literature and the History of Ideas 2002
BA Hons (1st Class) Art / Philosophy 1994
Post Graduate Certificate in Education (FE)1995
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 2012
