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Here is a quick summary from present to distant past of my 'formal' employment:

• Goldsmiths, University of London, Associate Lecturer for BA and MA Musical Theatre courses 
• Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, Visiting Lecturer for American Theatre Arts (BA)
• The Arts Society accredited lecturer 
• Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Head of Publishing and Interpretation
• Musical Director, conductor, arranger and musical theatre performance coach 
• New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Senior Internal Editor responsible for all entries on Light, Popular and Pop Music – from the Strauss family to Triphop
• Kingsthorpe Upper School Faculty Director (Music)

•  Forthcoming Ivor Novello In His Own Works: A Critical Study of the Songs, Plays, Films and Musicals of a British Icon (Bloomsbury, 2026)
• British musical theatre 1920s–60s (Methuen Drama, 2023):  Reviewing the Situation: The British Musical from Noël Coward to Lionel Bart: John Snelson: Methuen Drama (bloomsbury.com)  PAPERBACK AVAILABLE 28 April 2025
• Network partner (2016-) in Leverhulme-funded international research project  The Phantom on Film: Screen Adaptations of Le Fantôme de l’Opèra: Routes of cultural Transfer . John's specialist areas: ownership of the voice, genre identities in opera and the musical, opera and popular culture, spatial articulation of aesthetics. Presentations in New York (MAMI 2016), Tokyo (IMS 2017) and Hong Kong (2017), and Sao Paulo (OBITEL), Salzburg (Conference: 'When the Music Takes Over' 2018) and London (Phantom Project conference 2018)
• Keynote speaker at Gaiety, Glitz and Glamour: Reawakening the “Silver Age” of twentieth-century Operetta (RMA study day, UCL 2017)
• Keynote speaker at the Symposium on British Musical Theatre (University of Winchester, 2016) 
• The West End Musical 1947-54: British Identity and the 'American Invasion', PhD (University of Birmingham, 2003). This is the project that brought so much together and from which so much has followed.

•  Forthcoming Ivor Novello In His Own Works: A Critical Study of the Songs, Plays, Films and Musicals of a British Icon (Methuen Drama, 2026)
• Forthcoming 'Rodgers and Hammerstein's London' in Rodgers and Hammerstein in Context, ed. Dominic Broomfield-McHugh and William A. Everett (CUP, 2026)
• PAPERBACK PUBLISHED 28 April 2025 Reviewing the Situation: The British Musical from Noël Coward to Lionel Bart (Methuen Drama, 2023):  Reviewing the Situation: The British Musical from Noël Coward to Lionel Bart: John Snelson: Methuen Drama (bloomsbury.com) 
• 'Guys and Dolls in London', in the Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical, ed. Robert Gordon and Olaf Jubin (OUP, 2023)  The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical - Robert Gordon, Olaf Jubin - Oxford University Press (oup.com) 
• 'Enduring Appeal: Puccini and Popular Culture' in Puccini in Context, ed. Alexandra Wilson (CUP, 2023)  Puccini context | Opera | Cambridge University Press 
• 'Shockwaves at a Distance: Ellis and Herbert's Bless the Bride' and Performing Paris: Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love' in Paris and the Musical: the City of Light on Stage and Screen, ed. Olaf Jubin, (Routledge, 2021)
• 'Controlling Voices: Singing in Phantom films', The Opera Quarterly, 34/2-3 (spring/summer 2018)
• 'The Waltzing Years: British Operetta 1907-1939' in Musical Theatre in Europe 1830-1945, ed. Michaela Niccolai and Clair Rowden (Brepols 2017)
• '"Ordinary People" and British Musicals of the Post-War Decade' in Oxford Handbook of the British Musical, ed. Robert Gordon and Olaf Jubin (2017) 
• '"We Said We Wouldn't Look Back": British Musical Theatre 1935-1969' in the Cambridge Companion to the Musical, ed. William A. Everett and Paul Laird (expanded chapter for 3/2017) 
• How to Enjoy Opera (Oberon Books/Bloomsbury, 2016) 
• The Ring: an Illustrated History of Wagner's Ring at the Royal Opera House (Royal Opera House/Oberon Press, 2006) 
• Andrew Lloyd Webber (Broadway Masters Series, Yale UP, 2004)
• Academic contributor to authoritative reference works including rev. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Oxford Companion to Music,  rev. Grove Dictionary of American Music, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Many programme book articles, including for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Salzburg Festivals.
• Arranger: Gilbert & Sullivan Overtures [piano duets] Peters Edition, London

• PhD, Historical Musicology – University of Birmingham 
• PGCE, Music – University of Reading  
• BA (Hons) Music – University of Nottingham 
• LTCL (organ, performer's diploma)
• Honorary Research Fellow in Music – University of Nottingham 
• Music Fellow, Arts & Humanities Faculty – Goodenough College 

 I love cooking, enjoy good wine, and have enjoyed learning how to paint botanical watercolours (see my painting of a camelia above)