William Crosby (he/him)

Courses taught:

• Audio and Music Technology (Undergraduate)
• Music Performance (Undergraduate)
• Music Production (Undergraduate)

William is a lecturer across ARU’s Music and Media pathways, teaching modules on creative practice-research, political news media, and music and sound studies’ cultural-political contexts. He is an artist, musician, and practice-based researcher, working at the intersections of sound arts/experimental music, radical pedagogies, environmental humanities, and grassroots community organising.

[email protected]

Background

William is a British/Greek-Cypriot artist, musician, and researcher, who first joined Anglia Ruskin University in 2015 as their classical guitar teacher and as an Associate Lecturer in Music Performance and Composition. During his Music degree (2012-2015) he focused on experimental music and sound studies, before going on to develop interests in sound’s links to climate change, pedagogy, and political organising, leading him to complete an MA in Sound Arts in 2021. Alongside his teaching at ARU, he is also a doctoral researcher at the centre for Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP) at University of the Arts, London.

As a classical/electric guitarist, William has toured internationally as both a solo artist and ensemble member, and released music on Aural Terrains, Elektramusic, and Bad Vibrations/Fuzz Club. He is also a member of British/Italian experimental opera group, Operta Collective. As an artist, William’s work has been exhibited internationally, and he is a member of MUD Collective (Iraq, India, France, UK), an international sedimentology-sound-art research group, and artist-activist duo, (CWxWC), with Dr Cecilia Wee. William also sits on the board of artist advisors for Create Cambridge, and is a Wysing Arts Centre studio artist.

Research interests

• sound arts & critical sound studies
• radical pedagogies
• environmental humanities
• experimental music
• community organising

William’s work and research explores how sound enables embodied encounters with others, and how these stand as a radical act of co-working and resistance building in the face of the polycrises of today. He works with field recordings, text scores, improvisation, writing, and communal sound-making to ask how sonic knowledge can develop communal pedagogical tools. With MUD Collective, he is exploring thinking with, through, and about mud/soil, in consideration of shifting ideas around human/more-than-human, organic/inorganic, intra-actions. With (CWxWC), he seeks to sound out an investigation into re-tuning the politics of listening within multiple cultural, social, economic, and environmental crises.

Teaching

William currently teaches on the following modules:

• Collaborative Project
• ‘Fake News’, Digital Conflict and Media Law
• Final Project
• Music Industry
• Portfolio
• Sound and Vision: Music and Media

Qualifications

• 2023 - | PhD (in progress) @ University of the Arts, London: London College of Communication
• 2021 | MA Sound Arts (Distinction) @ University of the Arts, London: London College of Communication
• 2018 | PG Cert: Teaching and Learning (Higher Education) @ Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge
• 2015 | BA (Hons) Music (First Class) @ Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Memberships, editorial boards

• Fellowship @ Higher Education Academy
• Artist Advisor @ Create Cambridge
• Artist member @ a-n The Artists Information Company
• Co-Chair @ UAL PGRs for Palestine Working Group
• Studio Artist @ Wysing Arts Centre

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• 2025 Artist Bursary from a-n The Artist Information Company.
• Wysing Arts Centre Studio Artist 2024-2029.
• Multiple instances of funding from, or involving in projects funded by, Arts Council England, Anglia Ruskin Arts Council, National Lottery Fund, Levelling Up Fund, University of the Arts London, Tate Group, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The British Institute for the Study of Iraq, and The Serpentine Gallery.
• £4000 from Anglia Ruskin University as part of the Undergraduate Researcher Scheme and Musicology Research Assistant position.

Selected recent publications

Crosby, W., 2026 (forthcoming). muddiness: ped-ologies/agogies of listening and resistance. In: Toland, A. and Krzywoszynska, A. (eds), 2026. The Language of Soil: A Handbook for Transdisciplinary Research. London: Bloomsbury.

Crosby W., 2026 (forthcoming). New Music for Electric Guitar. [CD] Minsk: Aural Terrain Records.

(CWxWC), 2025. countermapping the ecotone. In: Fluid Earth, 2025. [exhibition] GroundWork Gallery, King’s Lynn. 4 October 2025 – 16 December 2025.

Operta Collective, 2025. Inscriptions. [CD] Berlin: Elektramusic.

Crosby, W., 2024. Artist-in-Residence. [exhibition] JOYA: arte & ecología, Andalusia, Spain. 25 November-9 December 2024.

LEAPLab Launch, 2024. Launch Workshop. [exhibition] CRASSH, University of Cambridge. 11 October 2024.

(CWxWC), 2024, Our Muddy Inheritance: The River Exe. [exhibition] River Radio with Art Work Exeter. 6-15 September 2024.

Crosby, W., 2024. Anthropogenic Soils Residency. [exhibition] NIBIO Svanhovd, Norway. 12-16 August 2024.

Crosby, W., 2024. in our muddy bodies. In: Unfolding Narratives 4, 2024. [exhibition] The Well Gallery, London College of Communication. 8-26 April 2024.

Brook, J., Cornett, P., Crosby, W., 2023. Improvisation. [live performance]. Performed by Jo Brook, Philip Cornett, William Crosby. (SoundLab103 @ Waterbeach Barracks, Cambridgeshire. 9 September 2023).

Crosby, W., 2023. the Sonicity and Sodicity of Mud. [live performance] Performed by William Crosby. (Dubrek Gallery, Derby. 1 September 2023).

Operta Collective, 2023. Inscriptions. [live performance] Performed by Opera Collective and guests. (Wimbledon College of the Arts Theatre, London. 3-5 July 2023).

Prynne, J. H., 2023. At raucous purposeful. [live performance] Performed by William Crosby, Kelcy Davenport, Angharad Davies, Deniz Johns, Dominic Lash, Simon Payne. (Café Oto, London. 12 June 2023).

Regressive Left, 2022. On The Wrong Side of History. [LP] London: Bad Vibrations Records/Fuzz Club Records.

Crosby, W., 2022. David Ryan – Fields and Refrains. [CD] Minsk: Aural Terrain Records.

Crosby, W., 2021. among unexpected companions. [exhibition] Parkhaus15, Florida. June 2021.

MUD Collective, 2021. Mesopotamian Mud: the third walk. [exhibition] Parkhaus15, Florida, and Window Room, Philadelphia. June 2021.

MUD Collective, 2021. Mesopotamian Mud: the third walk. [exhibition] Cambridge Festival. June 2021.

Crosby, W., 2020. among unexpected companions. [exhibition] Dilston Grove, London. 2-8 December 2020.

Crosby, W., 2020. surfacings ii — tracing every now & surfacings iii — anything which comes forth. [exhibition] Galerie Meno parkas, Düsseldorf, Germany. August-September 2020.

Crosby, W., 2019. a room in a room is a world sharing air. [exhibition]. Nollendorfplatz, Berlin. (22-28 July 2019).

Crosby, W., 2018. Whailes. [exhibition] Zion Baptist Church Crypt, Cambridge. 20-30 October 2017.

Crosby, W., 2018. not flowers, but gladdened leaves. [music score] In: Jackson, P., and Boyer, J. (eds), 2018. The Ruskin Songbook. Cambridge: Ruskin Arts, Langham Press.

Ryan, D., 2018. Clouds and Noise. [live performance] Performed by William Crosby and Joe Zeitlin. (Stanley Picker Gallery, London. 23 April 2018).

Recent presentations and conferences

(CWxWC), 2025 (forthcoming). countermapping the ecotone. In: GroundWork, Fluid Earth Conference. GroundWork Gallery, King’s Lynn, 21 November 2025.

Crosby, W., 2025. muddy listening: sonic pedagogies and resistance. In: ECREA Radio and Sound 2025 Conference, Thinking Through Sound, University of Sheffield, 8-9 September 2025.

Crosby, W., 2025. muddy listening: making a mess in the academy. In: UAL Doctoral School, Doctoral Summer Symposium, University of the Arts London, 20 June 2025.

Crosby, W., 2025. muddy listening: making a mess in the academy. In: Kings English Department, IR/RELEVANT Conference, Kings College London, 30 May 2025.

(CWxWC), 2025. Our Muddy Inheritance: sounding the ground-up. In: Livingmaps, More-than-Human Mappings Conference, Senate House University of London, 24 April 2025.

Crosby, W., 2025. Muddiness: sonic-pedagogical entanglements. In: Unfolding Narratives 5, Unfolding Live Symposium, University of the Arts London, 21 March 2025.

MUD Collective, 2024. our shared georhythms: bodies, scores, mixtures (muddy workshop 2.0) [installation version]. In: World Listening Day, World Listening Day Conference, Quip and Curiosity Gallery, Cambridge, 27 July 2024.

MUD Collective, 2024. our shared georhythms: bodies, scores, mixtures (muddy workshop 2.0). In: Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), In the Field 2, University of the Arts London, 4-6 July 2024.

MUD Collective, 2023. Exploring Human and More-Than-Human Entanglement Through the Sonicity And Sodicity Of Mud. In: London Critical, London Conference in Critical Thought, London Metropolitan University, 1 July 2023.

MUD Collective, 2022. Exploring Human and More-Than-Human Entanglement. in: Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), Wild Energies, University of the Arts London, 28 April 2022.

Operta Collective, 2021. Aphorisms. In: Cambridge Festival, online, March 2021.