about
Jacob Kingsbury Downs is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cyprus, where his research explores the relationship between music, sound, violence, torture, and imprisonment.
He is also currently Visiting Tutor at the University of Sheffield and has tutored and supervised students at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the Purcell School.
As well as academic pursuits, Jacob is an accomplished musician, regularly touring as a singer, pianist, viola player, and harpist.
He is also an experienced arranger, engraver, copyist, and score consultant.
BIOGRAPHY
Jacob was born in December 1993 near to the Devon coastline in south-west England. He began formal musical training at the age of ten, though the thrill of scales and technical exercises never quite outweighed that of writing new music for the army of instruments he collected over his teenage years.
At the age of eighteen, Jacob signed his first record deal with Vox Humana Records, releasing two singles and an EP with them over a five-year period, all of which he wrote, arranged, and produced. He has also toured nationally as a session musician.
After stints in Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Brussels, he now lives in Manchester.
"Kingsbury" is Jacob's middle name (his grandmother's maiden name).
education
ph.d. MUsic
university of sheffield
m.st. MUsic (musicology)
St john's college,
university of oxford
B.A. MUsic
christ church,
university of oxford
2012–2015
First
Recipient of Clifford Smith Prize