REVIEW: Catherine Lamb – Catherine Lamb, interius/exterius. Ghost Ensemble. greyfade, 010.
Review for Tempo Journal, Cambridge University Press. Volume 79, Issue 314, October 2025, pp. 93-94
REVIEW: Kari Watson: enclosures. Sawyer Editions, Batch #7.
Review for Tempo Journal, Cambridge University Press. Volume 79, Issue 313, July 2025, pp. 95 – 97
THESIS: Examining Precarity: A Study of Early Career Composers’ Professional Conditions in Aotearoa New Zealand
MA Musicology Thesis, completed at McGill University in 2024.
Supervised by Prof. Roe-Min Kok.
Abstract: Many young contemporary music composers in Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter “ANZ”) are experiencing financial instability and a lack of opportunities to develop their artistic skills and portfolio. The nation’s arts funding system and arts sector infrastructure have not kept up with the industry’s needs. Additionally, the broader neoliberal economic ideology which has permeated national politics since the 1980s exacerbates experiences of income, work, and lifestyle precarity amongst early career composers. I have interviewed five early career composers (hereafter “ECC”) from ANZ to document and investigate how they experience and navigate these precarious professional conditions. I contextualize these findings within international and ANZ commentary on the impact of neoliberal economics on artistic careers, Government-led studies of the sustainability of ANZ’s arts sector, and historical sources which illuminate movements within ANZ’s compositional infrastructure and community. This thesis provides a detailed account of the important infrastructure that has supported the development of contemporary music composition in ANZ, and where such infrastructure is no longer meeting the needs of the community. Additionally, drawing upon my findings, I make recommendations of areas of investigation which warrant further attention, such as the impact of “Tall Poppy Syndrome” on ECC as they navigate and participate within a highly competitive industry. This thesis challenges the common occurrence within musicological research, as explained by Smith and Thwaites (2019), whereby composers emerge “without interrogation of how they were chosen above others who aspired to this, highly competitive, field” and without consideration of how emerging artists navigate the early stages of their careers.
Read here.
ARTICLE: Stories and Sounds: Exploring the ‘Aisteach’ Fictional Archive and the Process of Becoming in Ireland and Aotearoa
Published in the Fall 2023 edition of Glissando Magazine in collaboration with Sounds Now.
Ihlara McIndoe. 