Lilburn Research Fellowship

What’s the Lilburn Research Fellowship?

This biennial fellowship encourages scholarly research leading to publication on some aspect of New Zealand and music, using the resources of the Archive of New Zealand Music and the wider published and unpublished collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

The Lilburn Research Fellow also has access to the general collections of the National Library, as well as online resources.

The Fellowship is for one year and will commence in early 2025. The Fellow is expected to be based primarily at the National Library in Wellington for the term of tenure. Office space and facilities will be provided. The successful applicant will receive a grant of up to $70,000.

Archive of New Zealand Music
Music Collections

Apply for the Lilburn Research Fellowship

Applications for the 2025 Lilburn Research Fellowship are open. Last day for applying is 31 May 2024.

Information, including conditions and application guidelines, can be found on the Douglas Lilburn website.

Douglas Lilburn website

Current Lilburn Research Fellow

The recipient for the Lilburn Research Fellowship 2023 is writer, musician, and broadcaster Nick Bollinger. He will research and write a book on culture, class and identity in New Zealand music. Exploring historic thinking on the subject, from composer Douglas Lilburn’s cultural nationalism to Lorde’s assertion that ‘pop can unite populations’, the book will ask: ‘What happens to notions of musical identity in our hyper-connected 21st century?’ Areas to be considered include Māori showbands, electronic music, taonga puoro (traditional Māori musical instruments), and visits by international artists, such as Bob Marley.

Being the Lilburn Fellow will give me the time to examine in-depth ideas about music and New Zealand life that I’ve only been able to touch on in my previous work. It will also enable me to dig deep into the relevant archives. The National Library and Alexander Turnbull Library collections are a goldmine for a cultural researcher. Being based at the National Library will be like living amongst the treasures.

Mr Bollinger was a music columnist for the Listener for more than twenty years and has written, produced and presented Radio New Zealand’s music review programme The Sampler. He is the author of How to Listen to Pop Music (2004), 100 Essential New Zealand Albums (2009), Goneville: A Memoir (2016), and published 2022 Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand, which was winner of the Ockham Book Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction. As well, he has been a member of many music groups including Rough Justice, The Pelicans, and Windy City Strugglers.

Previous recipients of the Lilburn Research Fellowship

Previous recipients of the Lilburn Research Fellowship have studied a wide range of topics to do with New Zealand and music.

Dr Anton Killin, 2021 recipient

The recipient for the Lilburn Research Fellowship 2021 was Dr Anton Killin. His research topic was Indonesian gamelan in New Zealand composition. He focused on cross-cultural music composition in New Zealand relating to use of gamelan, a traditional ensemble music type of Indonesia. Gamelan has been a significant cultural influence on New Zealand composers since a gamelan ensemble was introduced here in 1975 by ethnomusicologist Allan Thomas. There are now gamelan ensembles based around the country. Composers who were subsequently inspired to write works for gamelan include David Farquhar, Jack Body, Gareth Farr, John Psathas, Helen Bowater, and Juliet Palmer.

I feel excited and honoured to be awarded the 2021 Lilburn Research Fellowship. Indonesian gamelan music has been and continues to be a significant source of non-Western musical influence for generations of New Zealand composers, from Douglas Lilburn and Jack Body to emerging composers today. This research project aims to provide an account of this influence, with which I hope to benefit both contemporary New Zealand music studies and cross-cultural philosophical aesthetics, as well as promote gamelan music itself.
— Dr Anton Killin

Dr Killin studied music composition and philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington, with cross-cultural music being the focus of much of his subsequent research. Since being awarded his doctorate in 2017, he has held post-doctoral fellowships in Australia, USA, and Canada.

Daniel Beban, 2019 recipient

The recipient of the Lilburn Research Fellowship 2019 was Daniel Beban. He used the fellowship to further a study of the Braille Collective musicians in Wellington, who made up groups such as the Six Volts and the Primitive Art Group in the mid-1980s.

This is a fantastic opportunity to produce a book about the Braille Collective and New Zealand improvised music from the late ‘70s onwards. It’s an important story in the history of New Zealand music, and as most of the musicians involved in this community have operated outside of institutions, it is a piece of history that has been largely overlooked. It is a great privilege that I am able to devote a substantial period of time to helping tell their story.
— Daniel Beban

Mr Beban studied ethnomusicology and composition at Victoria University of Wellington, with improvised and experimental music being the focus of much of his subsequent research, writing and radio broadcasting work.

Dr Aleisha Ward, 2017 recipient

The recipient of the Lilburn Research Fellowship for 2017 was Dr Aleisha Ward. She used the fellowship to research the musical and cultural history of New Zealand’s jazz age (1917-1929) in a project called ‘The Jazz Age in New Zealand’.

I feel incredibly honoured to be selected as the 2017 Lilburn Research Fellow. This makes it possible for me to expand to a national scale the research I am doing. I am delighted to have this opportunity to explore and share with others the vibrant and exciting jazz, dance, music and entertainment scene of 1920s New Zealand, and tell the story of how jazz in all its guises infiltrated and affected the formation of modern New Zealand culture.

The composer Douglas Lilburn’s manifestos on searching for tradition and language resonate not only in New Zealand art music history, but also in our jazz history. The arguments that Lilburn made for New Zealand artists to find our own traditions and musical languages that align with, but are separate from, the northern hemisphere have been explored by our jazz and dance musicians since the early 1920s.

— Dr Aleisha Ward

Dr Ward holds a PhD in Music from the University of Auckland, an MA in Jazz History and Research from Rutgers University, New Jersey, and was the 2016/2017 Sir George Grey Researcher in Residence at Auckland Libraries.