Expertise Areas
Staff research areas
- Instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic composition
- Ethnomusicology, with an emphasis on traditional and contemporary Asian and Pacific musics
- Historical musicology, focussing on 17th century English music, 16th-18th century French music, 19th century music history and analysis
- Performance practice, Music in New Zealand, electroacoustic music
- Performance on all orchestral instruments, baroque cello, singing, piano, organ, fortepiano, harpsichord, guitar, lute, recorder
- Music Therapy
All staff at the New Zealand School of Music are actively involved in research
relevant to their specialisation. The School promotes musical performance and
composition as legitimate fields of research alongside musicology, and the University
awards funding for research in all three areas on an equal basis.
Musicology
Dr Greer Garden, with Emeritus Professor
Peter Walls, is editing and contributing several chapters
to a study of Le Ballet de la deliverance de Renault (1617), a
Marsden-funded project being undertaken in collaboration with
specialists in France and the USA.
New Zealand Music Studies
Associate Professor Robert Hoskins is series
editor of the Promthean-Massey music editions of New Zealand composers
(1994-) and series editor of the ten-volume Larry Pruden Collected
Edition published by Promethean Editions (2002-).
Professor Donald Maurice has a longstanding interest in the music of Alfred Hill, an early New Zealand musician and composer, and he has recorded several of Hill's compositions with the New Zealand Piano Quartet. He has also recently published Bartók's Viola Concerto: The Remarkable Story of His Swansong (Oxford University Press).
Composition
Associate Professor Jack Body's current composition
projects include a
large music-theatre work, "Songs and Dances of Death and Desire",
inspired by Carmen Rupe, New Zealand's iconic drag-queen. "On
the Death
of Pol Pot", an NZSO commission for cor anglais solo with
orchestra,
will be premiered in 2008. Other projects include "The Street
Where I
Live", for piano with the composer's recorded voice, commissioned
for
Stephen de Pledge, and two more electro-acoustic works in a series
entitled "Intimate Portraits".
Associate Professor John Psathas composed music for the opening
and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Recent
work includes the CD/DVD release of View From Olympus, the saxophone concerto
Zahara, and the piano trio Helix.
Michael Norris is currently researching the application of
biological growth systems (known as "Lindenmeyer Systems") to
the precompositional stage. A series of works over the next couple of years
will be used to develop these ideas, including a new piano concerto, a new
work for clarinet duo, ensemble and live electronics (to be performed by the
Duo Stump-Linshalm and Stroma), a new work for string quartet and electronics,
a new work for solo cello, and a new work for solo clarinet. Current musical
influences include the music of Wolfgang Rihm, Hanspeter Kyburz, Helmut Lachenmann,
Salvatore Sciarrino, as well as the spectralist school (Saariaho, Murail, Grisey,
etc.).
Sonic Arts
Dr Dugal McKinnon's recent works includes Untitled (Readymade
Counterfeit #1), composed for Swiss saxophonist Lars Mlekusch; the multi-channel
soundtrack for the installation Little Earth, exhibited at the 2005 Cheltenham
Festival of Science and other UK venues; and 'Other Notes: Jack Body's Alley',
published in East by South (VUP, 2005). Upcoming projects include pieces
for Dutch percussionist Arnold Marinissen and the Tudor Consort (choir and live
electronics).
Performance
Classical
The Centre for Guitar Studies hosted the largest guitar event in New Zealand in twenty years, the New Zealand International Guitar Festival, in September 2005. Associate Professor Matthew Marshall, director of the new Centre, together with centre guitar teacher Gunter Herbig, performed Villa-Lobos' 12 Etudes for guitar from a recently discovered 1928 manuscript. William Bower makes up the trio of teachers at the new research and teaching centre.
Diedre Irons has recently completed her cycle of recordings
of Beethoven Piano Concertos, with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
This series also includes the rarely heard piano transcription of the Violin
Concerto.
The New Zealand String Quartet maintains a busy schedule of national and international
touring and performing. In 2006 the Quartet undertook a nine concert tour of
Korea, two North American tours, and a four concert tour of Mexico including
two concerts in the prestigious Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato. During the
first North American tour the first of three recording sessions for Naxos of
the complete Mendelssohn String Quartets was undertaken. In New Zealand the
Quartet celebrated the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart with a concert
tour of Mozart's six "Haydn" Quartets and the two Piano Quartets,
joined by Hungarian pianist Peter Nagy.
Jazz
Recent Jazz tours by Rodger Fox have included the touring Blue Chip Jazz Series and the 2005 Montana Wellington International Jazz Festival. Latest recordings have included artists such as Bill Cunliffe, Tom Warrington and Joe LeBarbara.
Norman Meehan is currently engaged in writing a book on New
Zealand Jazz legend, pianist Mike Nock. This follows on from his successful publication
Time Will Tell - Conversations with Paul Bley.
Music Therapy
Director of Music Therapy Associate Professor Sarah Hoskyns
is currently undertaking research with adult offending clients in group Music
Therapy. Daphne Rickson is undertaking research on Music Therapy
assessment with young special needs children. Daphne Rickson recently delivered
papers on her research at the World Conference on Music Therapy in Brisbane.
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Last Updated:
December 7, 2007
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