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Durham Students Win Prize at RMA Southeast Asia Chapter Conference
Two current Durham Music PhD students, Ardi Echevarria and Yan Xin Ng, presented papers at the Royal Musical Association's Southeast Asia Chapter conference in 2026 — and both were awarded the Springer Researcher Student Prize. Durham alumnus Matthew Hansel, who completed an MA by Research in 2024, also presented.
The conference saw strong Durham representation across three papers. Ardi Echevarria's "Tracing the Philippine Symphony's Transnational History" surveyed the early history of the Philippine Symphony Orchestra, with particular attention to Sufonias Aguinaldo, and forms part of his forthcoming postdoctoral research. Yan Xin Ng's "Rehearsing Belonging: Wellbeing and Intercultural Learning in a UK University P'ungmul Ensemble" examined the social dynamics of Durham's own P'ungmul Ensemble and its processes of intercultural exchange. Matthew Hansel, now based in Indonesia, presented "Repositioning Partimento: Inclusive Harmonic Pedagogy in Indonesia," exploring how partimento traditions can be applied in contemporary university teaching to bridge theory and practice for students from diverse musical backgrounds. The full conference programme is available here.