Henry's research explores improvisation and spontaneous creativity, as well as environmental and participatory arts. He is interested in how improvisation-as-performance can help us to explore complex social, environmental, and political relationships, as well as how the aesthetic worlds and relationships emergent in improvised performance can refract, reflect, and inform our lives and societies.

He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Manchester (UK), where he works for Creative Manchester - an interdisciplinary research platform championing creativity and innovation in Civic Futures, Health and Wellbeing, and the Creative Industries.

He was recently the lead postdoctoral researcher on a National Institute for Health Research School for Social Care research funded project evaluating the impact of an improvised music-making training programme for social care staff within residential dementia care contexts. Recently, he also led as a research associate on a six-month study evaluating arts-based participatory research approaches in cultural partnerships with the University of Manchester.

His postdoctoral research project Improvising in the Field is currently mapping how practices of improvisation are applied across health, wellbeing, and community-based projects within the UK in music, dance, and theatre. He is a co-investigator on the project Moss Worlds, which brings together an interdisciplinary team from literature studies, urban planning, history, biology, sound art, geography, and community arts practice to explore the botanical, political, and aesthetic properties of urban mosses.

Between 2019 and 2023, he undertook a PhD at the University of Huddersfield's Centre for Research in New Music and Centre for Research in Performance Practice, where his project More Than One Thing investigated the aesthetics and ethics of experimental sound and movement practices in transdisciplinary free improvisation.

Articles, essays, and chapters

McPherson, D.H.J., Sappho, M., Catherin, B. (2024). Making mycorrhizal noise: hypermedia, digitality, and interpreting the paraficional universes of the noisebringers. Liminalities, 20(3). [ Forthcoming ]

🕮 Dowlen, R., McPherson, D.H.J., Swarbrick, C, Hoskin, L., Keady, J., Thompson, J. (2024). Creating and Reliving the Moment: Using musical improvisation and care aesthetics as a lens of connection and self-expression for younger people living with dementia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

🕮 McPherson, D. H. J. (2024). Environmental Reciprocity in Improvising Practice. Cultures of Sound. Huddersfield University Press.

🕮 McPherson, D. H. J. (2023). Listening like an Improviser: Composing in the Studio with Collaged Acoustic Free Improvisations. CeReNeM Journal, No.8.

🕮 McPherson, D. H. J. (2023). More Than One Thing: A Practice-Led Investigation into Transdisciplinary Free Improvisation in Sound and Movement [PhD thesis]. University of Huddersfield.

🕮 McPherson, D. H. J. (2020). Considering the Fixed Naming of Entities: Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach to Free Improvisation. CeReNeM Journal, No.7 (Performing Stuff: Human-Entity Interactions in Contemporary Artistic Practice), 16–40.

Outputs

Creative research outputs

🕮 McPherson, H. (2024). This, Here, Now: Invitations to Improvise. [artist book, creative output]. First creative iteration 2022. First published (UK) 2024

🔊 McPherson, D.H.J. (2022). String Quartet in Memoriam Béla Bartók. [album, creative output]

🔊 McPherson, D.H.J. (2022). Noise at the death of one beloved. Collaged studio improvisations [album, creative output].

📹 McPherson, D.H.J. (2021). More Than One Thing [Digital Installation + Durational Film]. Huddersfield contemporary music festival, Huddersfield. [installation, film, creative output]

Conferences presentations and workshops

McPherson, D.H.J. and Harris, T.M. (2024). Evaluating Arts-Based Participatory Research Methods in Cultural Partnerships with Creative Manchester. IMPACT: Reflect + Respond Conference. Cartwheel Arts. People's History Museum, Manchester.

Dowlen, R., Fox, S., Keady, J., Maguire-Rosier, K., McPherson, D.H.J., Thompson, J. (2024). Care aesthetics in dementia care: learning from the art of care and the care in art [Symposium]. British Society of Gerontology Conference. University of Newcastle

McPherson, D.H.J. (2024). Queer body, queer sounds. [Workshop]. Glitter Party: A Queer Research Symposium. Bidstone Observatory Research Centre. Centre for Experimental Practice, University of Huddersfield.

McPherson, D.H.J. (2024). A Queer Way to Sound: Corporeality, Instruments, and Social Identity in Transdisciplinary Free Improvisation. AJIRN Conference 2024. Monash University (AU).

McPherson, D.H.J. (2024). “Remember, you have a body”: developing presence with instrumental musicians through kinaesthetic methods in higher education improvisation pedagogy. Scenario Conference 2024: Presence in Performative Teaching, Learning and Research. Trinity College Dublin (IE).

McPherson, D.H.J. et al. (2024). "Shaping the Moment Together: Training Residential Care Home Staff in Improvisation-Based Therapeutic Music-Making for Older Adults Living with Dementia." International Conference on Improvisation in Music Therapy. Leuven (BE)

McPherson, D.H.J. (2024). Sounding Care: improvisation and empathy [Workshop]. Care Aesthetics Project. Care Lab, Whitworth Gallery, University of Manchester. (UK)

McPherson, D.H.J. (2024). Where in the world is the improviser? Transdisciplinarity, ecology, and new ways of dreaming in contemporary free improvisation practice. Musicians’ Perspectives on Improvisation Symposium. Exploratorium Berlin (DE).

McPherson, D.H.J. (2023). Towards Ecological Improvisation: Listening with the Body. Beyond Listening Symposium, Central European Network for Sonic Ecologies (CENSE). Budapest (HU).

McPherson, D.H.J., Dowlen, R., Keady, J., Bithell, C., Gagatsis, A., Young, A., Hoskin, L., Thomas, M. (2023). Embedding music in care home contexts through staff carer training. Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research Forum Conference, Liverpool. (UK). [poster presentation]

McPherson, D. H. J. (2021). Meanings in the Moment: Nonsense and Narrative Interactions in Transdisciplinary Free Improvisation. The Improviser’s Experience: Knowledge, Methodology, Communication, University of Huddersfield, in association with the Royal Musicological Association. (UK)

📹 McPherson, D. H. J. (2021). Sounding-Moving Emergence in Transdisciplinary Free Improvisation. Emergence/y. A Sound Difference. Orpheus Doctoral Conference 2021. https://youtu.be/Ft_LakEKDqY

McPherson, D. H. J. (2021). “Spinning out world after world”: Considering transdisciplinary free improvisation as a practice of performative worlding. ReCePP/CMCI Research Colloquium, University of Huddersfield. (UK)

📹 McPherson, D. H. J., & Sappho Donohue, M. (2021). Inventing the Language of Mush: How to Improvise a World. Cross-Genre and Locality. Rethinking Borders Symposium, Osaka University, University of Huddersfield [Online]. https://youtu.be/9crzJBhIgJU (UK/JP)

📹 McPherson, D. H. J. (2020). Ways Without Words: Thoughts on Presenting About Improvisation. Vision 2020 - Postgraduate Conference, University of Huddersfield. (UK) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_YMSYvzTI&t

McPherson, D. H. J. (2020). Fighting Fisher’s Matrix: Hierarchies of Awareness and Improvising Freedom. Capitalist Realism: 10 Years On, Symposium (RMA). University of Huddersfield. (UK)

McPherson, D. H. J. (2019). Transforming, Translating, Transmitting : Stimulus to Response in Interdisciplinary Improvisation. Lines of Flight Seminar Series. Research Centre for Performance Practice, University of Huddersfield. (UK)