Dr Leah Kardos
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Performing Arts
- School of Arts
- Kingston Hill
- Design, Arts and Creative Practice
Associate Professor in Music
About
I teach on the BA (Hons) in Music Technology and the MA Music courses in the Dept of Performing Arts, Kingston School of Art. I manage the Visconti Studio (a teaching, research and knowledge exchange facility, co-founded in 2016 with producer Tony Visconti) and I co-lead the MA Music suite of courses alongside Dr Cynthia Stephens-Himonides.
I work across music, writing, and research. My monograph Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2022. My 33 1/3 book on Kate Bush's Hounds of Love was published in 2024. I write regularly for The Wire magazine. As a composer and producer, I release music with Bigo & Twigetti and UPPM, and work on media commissions. I'm currently editing the forthcoming Bloomsbury Handbook of David Bowie and serve as an associate editor for the Journal of Popular Music Studies.
In 2019 I founded the Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra (KUSO), a community ensemble sponsored by British instrument manufacturer Dubreq, bringing together staff, students, alumni, and local residents. KUSO's debut album Stylophonika was released in 2022; a limited edition cassette, Live to Tape at Visconti Studio, followed in 2023.
Across all of this, my work circles a set of shared questions: what can sounds mean beyond their musical content? How does the studio shape the work that passes through it? What happens when material filters through human bodies, histories, and technologies? How do recordings hold memory? Who gets to compose, and with what?
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Practice) - University of Queensland, 2009-2014.
- Post-Graduate Certificate of Education - University of Greenwich, 2008.
- BMus(Hons) - University of Queensland, 1998-2002.
- A.Mus.A (Associate Music Diploma (Australia)) - AMEB, 1997, Pianoforte, Distinction.
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
Domains
Publications
Gallery of work
KUSO and Tony Visconti in the studio (Dec 2019)
KUSO at the Stanley Picker Gallery (April 2019)
Presenting Bowie Musicology (ACMI Melbourne 2017)
Winter school 2019 with producer Chris Kimsey and Sol Collective
Producer Chris Porter with Flight Brigade and student interns (2017)
Performing Feather Hammer, 2012
Photo by Justin Hannaford
Performing Machines, 2015
At the Servant Jazz Quarters, London
d-Voxx performing at Visconti Studio (21CMP Study Day 2017)
Interviewing Tony Visconti (Dec 2016)
Interviewing Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey (Feb 2018)
Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra (photo by Marcus Clackson 2021)
Promo for Stylophonika (by Marcus Clackson 2021)
Videos of my work
Core
from Feather Hammer - 2011
The emancipating power of samplers & sequencers in the work of Kate Bush during the early-to-mid 80s
Video essay on Kate Bush's use of music technology between 1980–85
Dublin Bowie Festival 2023:
This video of my presentation at Whelans on the 15th January at the 2023 Dublin Bowie Festival was filmed by Billy Cahill.
'Akoustiki' by the Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra
music video directed by Kasia Kaczmarek
Episode 43: Tony Visconti & Chris Kimsey
Space Oddity (Cover) - Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra
The Kingston University Stylophone Orchestra, performing an arrangement of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity'. Arranged by Leah Kardos. Produced by Tony Visconti. Recorded at Visconti Studio, Kingston, September 2019.
Visconti Studio Presents WINTERSCHOOL 2019
Pure Analogue Practice Research with producer Chris Kimsey - Feb 2019
Open Again Eventually
from Bird Rib (2020)
Deedee
from Bird Rib (2020)
Black holes, black music, black arts, black hearts & button eyes
Video essay: Analysis of David Bowie's song 'Blackstar' (2015)