Evgeniya Kondrashina, Goldsmiths, University of London

During my second year I was awarded the Edison Fellowship at the British Library Sound Archive. My PhD research focuses on records of Russian music during the Cold War. The main benefit of the fellowship for me was the access I received to the expertise of the Sound Archive staff, including curators and audio engineers, and its enormous records collection. I photographed several hundred records of Russian music, studying the images and sleeve notes. The advice and explanations of the Classical Music Curator were instrumental in shaping my understanding of the broader industry developments. He also introduced me to important past employees of records companies, who I interviewed for the PhD. As part of the fellowship, I catalogued a large set of previously unidentified Russian language records held at the Sound Archive and wrote a blog post for the British Library.