Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh (he/him)

BMus (Hons), MMus, PhD, DipABRSM, FHEA

Department of Music

Professor of Musicology

Departmental Director of Research and Innovation for Music from September 2024

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d.mchugh@sheffield.ac.uk
1.11, Jessop Building

Full contact details

Professor Dominic Broomfield-McHugh
Department of Music
1.11
Jessop Building
Leavygreave Road
Sheffield
S3 7RD
Profile

I’m a world-leading musicologist with expertise on the American musical on stage and screen. My particular interest is in how the social changes in American society around the middle of the twentieth century led to the formation of a canon of enduring musicals that reflect the shifting political climate of the time.

This is reflected in my ten books, which include studies of popular individual musicals, writers and broader topics. I am also a Visiting Professor at the historic Gresham College, where I have delivered free public lecture series on divas and showstoppers.

The impact of my work beyond academia includes collaborating with Iowa PBS on the documentary Meredith Willson: America’s Music Man (2022), for which I won an Emmy Award.

I am passionate about teaching and have been the recipient of three awards in this area: an Early Career Senate Award and Academic Awards for Best Postgraduate Supervisor and Best Feedback. I am also Director of the MA in Musicology and was previously Director of Performance. I have served as Faculty Director of Knowledge Exchange and Impact, Deputy Chair of EDI for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Chair of the Disability Staff Network. 

As a professional pianist, I have accompanied West End performers including Olivier Award winners Sara Kestelman and David Bedella. Organisations with which I have worked include the Great American Songbook Foundation and the Sydney Opera House, and I have given lectures and talks all over the world.

I have acted as external examiner for UG/MA degrees at Leeds, Kent and Chester and for PhDs at institutions including KCL, York and Nottingham.

I am external examiner for undergraduate programmes at Kent (2016-19) and Chester (2018-22) and postgraduate programmes at Leeds (2017-2021) and have been an external examiner for research degrees at York and KCL. 

Born in Lancashire, I was educated at King’s College London, where I took the BMus (winning the Purcell Prize), MMus and a PhD on My Fair Lady, the latter two programmes with AHRC funding. I also studied the piano at the Royal Academy of Music, and taught several modules at King’s before my appointment at Sheffield in 2011.

Research interests

My passion for the Broadway and Hollywood musical has resulted in a number of book projects. These have included monographs on the musical My Fair Lady (OUP, 2012) and composer Meredith Willson (OUP, 2021); editions of the letters of Cole Porter (Yale, 2019), Alan Jay Lerner (OUP, 2014), and Frank Loesser (Yale, 2025), and of the lyrics of Lerner (OUP, 2018); a collection of essays on The Wizard of Oz (OUP, 2018); and three Oxford Handbooks, focusing on Musical Theatre Screen Adaptations (2019), the Hollywood Musical (2022), and the Disney Musical (2025). 

I am Series Editor of Oxford Guides to Film Musicals, a new book series in which I will contribute a volume on MGM’s The Band Wagon, and was previously Reviews Editor of the journal Studies in Musical Theatre (SMT). I guest edited a special issue of SMT focused on Stephen Sondheim, and also sit on the Advisory Board of Oxford’s Broadway Legacies series. 

I curated a landmark series of concert productions of Broadway musicals, performed by students of the University of Sheffield, including UK and world premieres of songs and scores by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Bernstein, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin. 

I have brought my expertise to the public in a number of prestigious venues and settings, including appearances at the V&A, the BFI, Widescreen Weekend, New York City Center, Lincoln Center, the New York Public Library and Sadler’s Wells. My TV and radio appearances include over fifty appearances on BBC TV and radio and my work on disability and the Broadway musical was covered in a special news article by the New York Times.

I created the StageStruck! international conference, which has run five times and will be convened at the Library of Congress in 2025.

My special relationship with the Great American Songbook Foundation includes appearing in several video series, hosting Q&A sessions in a film festival, and sitting on their Collections Committee.

Publications

Edited books

  • Broomfield-McHugh D (Ed.) (2022) The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical. New York: Oxford University Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

  • Broomfield-McHugh D & Robbins H (2022) Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 16(2), 151-152. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Robbins H & Broomfield-McHugh D (2022) Reviews Editorial. Studies in Musical Theatre, 16(1), 77-78. RIS download Bibtex download

Chapters

  • Broomfield-McHugh D (2022) World War II and the Cold War, The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre (pp. 136-149). Routledge RIS download Bibtex download
  • Broomfield-McHugh D (2022) Hard to Replace: The Shadow of Judy Garland and the Artistic Remarriage of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway In Broomfield-McHugh D (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical (pp. 368-388). New York: Oxford University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • McHugh D (2022) Fragments of Fairyland, Sondheim in Our Time and His (pp. 45-65). Oxford University Press RIS download Bibtex download
Research group

I have supervised seven students to successful completion on topics ranging from Lerner and Loewe to Cole Porter to the Decca record company and would be pleased to hear from suitably-qualified prospective students interested in working on musicological approaches to American musical theatre or film. See the information on applying for a PhD.

Grants
  • Frederick Loewe Foundation £207,000 (2017) Three Doctoral Scholarships: critical editions of Brigadoon, Camelot and Gigi
  • Arts Enterprise/HEIF Award £1,000 (2017) Support for The Day Before Spring concert
  • Alumni Foundation Award £1,000 (2016) Support for Broadway concert projects
  • Arts Enterprise/HEIF Award £1,189 (2016) Support for project with the Frederick Loewe Foundation
  • Frederick Loewe Foundation £55,545 (2015) Doctoral Scholarship: a critical edition of Paint Your Wagon
  • Early Career Senate Award £2,000 (2015)
  • British Library/AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award £54,000 (2014) – “The Decca Legacy of Christopher Raeburn”
  • Alumni Foundation Award £15,000 (2014) – Funding to purchase sound equipment for musical theatre productions.
  • British Academy Small Research Grant £9,959 (2013) – Research into critical editions of musicals
  • Arts Enterprise/HEIF Award £8,515 (2013) – Support for the “Stagestruck!” film festival and insight events in collaboration with the Showroom Cinema, 14-16 May 2014
  • Alumni Foundation Award £1,000 (2013) – Support for a research-led concert performance of Jule Styne’s “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (December 2013)
  • Alumni Foundation Award £1,600 (2013) – Support for a research-led concert performance of Leroy Anderson’s “Goldilocks” (April 2013)
  • Arts Enterprise/HEIF Award £1,000 (2012) – insight events and an exhibition surrounding Sheffield Theatres’s production of My Fair Lady
  • AMS 75 PAYS $3,000 (2011) – subvention to support the publication of “Loverly: The Life and Times of My Fair Lady” (OUP)
  • Mackintosh Charitable Foundation £2,000 / Sir Tim Rice Charitable Foundation £2,000 (2010) – Support for research into the correspondence of Alan Jay Lerner.
Teaching activities

I am passionate about teaching and have been the recipient of three awards in this area: an Early Career Senate Award (2015) and Academic Awards for Best Postgraduate Supervisor (2014) and Best Feedback (2015). I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (FHEA). I was Deputy Chair of EDI for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for five years.

Professional activities and memberships
  • Series Editor of Oxford Guides to Film Musicals
  • Reviews Editor of Studies in Musical Theatre (2015-22)
  • Advisory Board Member of Oxford’s Broadway Legacies since 2016
  • Convenor of the StageStruck! conference
  • Member of the AHRC Peer Review College
  • Trustee, Lost Musicals
  • Trustee, the Bunnett-Muir Musical Theatre Archive Trust
  • Visiting Professor of Film and Theatre Music, Gresham College