Michael Burden, FAHA, (born 14 March 1960) is an Australian musicologist, working in the United Kingdom. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018.
He served as chair of the board of the University of Oxford's music faculty from 2015 to 2018. From 2007 until 2015, he was a visitor to Oxford's Ashmolean Museum; he is also curator of the Music Faculty's collection of portraits. In the academic year 2009–2010, he was one of the university's four pro-proctors (deputies to the proctors).
His research is on the stage music of Purcell, and on aspects of dance and theatre in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and includes a catalogue of Metastasio’s operas as performed in London, an edition of Le Ballet de la Nuit: Rothschild B1/16/6 with Jennifer Thorp, and a biographical account of Regina Mingotti’s years in London. He is currently[when?] completing a book on the staging of opera in London 1660 to 1860. Much of his recent research has been directed towards the London Stage Project, [1] in particular to soon-to-be released The London Stage Calendar 1800-1844. [2].
With Jennifer Thorp, he organises the annual Oxford Dance Symposium, which takes place each year at New College.
His collection of mainly 18th century English theatre books, music, and other ephemera is gradually being accepted in a series of gifts to the Rare Books collection by the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide.
Editorial Boards, Editing
With Jonathan Hicks and Caroline Radcliffe, he is joint editor of the series 'Nineteenth-century British Theatrical Culture'.
He is on the editorial committees for the collected music editions of the works of Alessandro Stradella and John Eccles. His own editions include
Benedetto Marcello, Il pianto e il riso delle quattro stagioni, Recent Researches in Music of the Baroque Era, 115 (Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2002).
Henry Purcell, The Fairy-Queen (London: Edition Eulenburg, 2009); the first complete edition of both the text and the music.
William Walton, The Bear, William Walton Collected Edition, 2 (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Benedetto Marcello, Il Trionfo della Poesia, e della Musica nel celebrasi la morte, le esaltazione, e la inconronazione di Maria Sempore Virgine assunta in Cielo.Recent Researches in Music of the Baroque Era, 191 (Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2016).
Francesco Cavalli, Erismena, Collected Cavalli Edition (Bärenreiter Verlag, Kassel, 2018). Performed New College, Oxford, July 2010. Performed by Yale Baroque Opera Project on 1 and 2 May 2015. http://ybop.yale.edu
John Eccles, Revels on the Peace of Ryswick, Recent Researches in Music of the Baroque Era, 209 (Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2019).
Personal
One of his interests outside music is architectural history, particularly the history of architecture and town planning in Adelaide, South Australia. His first book was a photographic exploration of demolished buildings of that city. Published as Lost Adelaide by Oxford University Press in 1983, it remains a classic text in the documentation of Adelaide's lost architectural heritage.
