Professor Martin Fautley

Martin Fautley is a Professor of Education at Birmingham City University. He has a wealth of experience in music education, both in terms of pedagogy and research. For many years, he was a comprehensive school music teacher in a number of schools, and also ran a music centre. After enjoying a long career in the classroom, he then undertook full-time doctoral research in the education and music faculties at Cambridge University, investigating the teaching, learning, and assessment of classroom music making, with a focus on composing as a classroom activity. 

He is known internationally for his research into assessment in music education. His work on the longstanding research and activity project “Listen Imagine Compose” is also internationally renowned. Alongside these areas, he is also investigating notions of progression in music education, and what is meant by this terminology; what is entailed in creativity when it is applied to music education, particularly composing music; and trajectories in musical learning generally, especially in the novice stages.

Professor Fautley is the author of a number of books, including “Assessment in Music Education”, published by Oxford University Press. He has written and published over sixty journal articles, book chapters, and academic research papers on a range of aspects of teaching and learning in music education, and regularly presents research at international conferences. He is co-editor of the British Journal of Music Education.