Aside from his role as at New College, Samuel is a doctoral candidate in music at The Queen’s College, Oxford. As a practicing musician, Samuel has sung with the Choir of the Queen’s College since arriving in Oxford, with recent performances as part of Laus Polyphoniae (2022), an official pre-festival concert to Neustadter Herbst - Festival für Alte Musik (2023), a series of concerts and services as part of the Portugal-UK 650 project in both the UK and Portugal, and several engagements with the Oxford International Song Festival (formerly the Oxford Lieder Festival).

In recent years, Samuel has transitioned into working as a librarian alongside his doctoral study and music-making, currently at Christ Church, Oxford. Here, he carries out significant work with the world-leading music collections in the library, having recently curated an exhibition for the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd - ‘A Byrd in the Library’ (running Michaelmas Term 2023) - which accompanies an academic symposium in November. More recently still, Samuel has become editor of Early Music Performance & Research, the journal of the National Early Music Association (UK).

Teaching

Samuel also enjoys teaching at several colleges across the University, including New College, where he takes tutorials covering topics for both the Prelims and FHS courses, mainly focusing on music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Additionally, Samuel has recently been a featured artist with the Oxford International Song Festival, as a speaker for a lecture recital on the English and French baroque.

Research Interests

Samuel specialises in the music of Restoration England and the Chapel Royal, focusing on the life and works of Captain Henry Cooke, sometime Master of the Children of the Chapel, responsible for rearing the young composers of the English Restoration School which would culminate with Henry Purcell. Samuel’s research has seen him present papers at St James’s Palace, as well as convening an academic symposium and concert to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the death of Henry Cooke, featuring newly edited works which may well have gone unheard for over three centuries.