Dr D Ferrett

Dr D Ferrett is Course Leader for BA(Hons) Popular Music and a Senior Lecturer in Music. Since beginning her employment at Falmouth University in 2011, D has been instrumental in the development of the curriculum for music subject and has played a leading role in writing Falmouth's contemporary Popular Music degree course. She is the author of Dark Sound: Feminine Voices in Sonic Shadow (Bloomsbury, 2020) which adopts a critical feminist approach to music discourse and to the study of ‘dark sound’, developing a darkfemphonosophy through listening to artists whose music embodies dark themes.

Previous to joining Falmouth, D studied film, music and culture and was awarded a first class honours for both her undergraduate degree and her MA. She proceeded to teach at the Centre for Cultural Studies, the University of Leeds as a PhD researcher under the supervision of Dr Barbara Engh and alongside Professor Griselda Pollock and Dr Marcel Swiboda. At Leeds, D specialised in cultural studies, film theory, feminist philosophy, critical musicology and critical theory. She was also a co-editor of the internationally renowned cultural studies journal, Parallax published by Taylor and Francis, Routledge. D was awarded her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2009 for a thesis based on the mythologies of the ineffable in music discourse and the repertoire of experimental singer/composer Diamanda Galás (as examined by Professor Derek B Scott and Professor Sheila Whiteley).

D's music practice is based in a diverse range of music styles extending through blues, punk, indie rock, drum and bass, and improvised music. In her early twenties, she won the Young Blues Musician Award and played on the festival stage that featured Nina Simone, Taj Mahal and Van Morrision. She has performed in America and Europe as both a blues musician and as part of a punk group who were based in the Leeds DIY scene. In various guises, D has performed at radical festivals such as Ladyfest and Queeruption whilst also giving live performances for BBC Radio and Leeds Carling Festival. As part of a live dnb collective, support slots include Pendulum, Skream and Prime Cuts.