Thomas Batelaan

Thomas Batelaan is a musicologist and reception scholar, with a special interest in the afterlives of canonic Western composers.

Thomas was educated at Utrecht University's musicology programme, graduating from Europe's sole two-year master's degree in that subject. His master's thesis "Modernizing Bach" was awarded an exceptional 9 mark, awarded for a contribution that merits publication in an A-level journal and/or immediately qualifies for a doctorate. Before starting his PhD, Thomas wrote music criticism for NRC, the Dutch newspaper of record, and was involved with the Netherlands Bach Society's notable All of Bach recording project.

Thomas's doctoral thesis is supervised by Prof Dr Bettina Varwig, and concerns the post-war modernist reception of the music of J.S. Bach in West Germany and the United States. This research explores the image of Bach's music as looking toward the future, in the age of "Big Science", space exploration and computer technologies. How did his music gain its mathematical, almost computer-like aura, and how did Bach's 'universality' expand in a world in which non-human intelligence was becoming more and more normal? To answer this question, Thomas uses an innovative methodology that investigates the role of such media as the score, the long-playing record, and even software programmes. How did these media present Bach's music as an abstract mathematical scientific object, to be analysed and manipulated by a user? The answer to these questions may help in understanding the myriad of machine learning approaches to Bach's music at companies like Yamaha, Sony, and Google.

Thomas's research is co-supported by Corpus Christi College and the Cambridge Trust.