Outstanding new appointments at Music school
Following an international search, and over 130 applications, the ANU School of Music today announced the names of three musicians who will join the School next year.
Head of School Professor Peter Tregear said violinist and musicologist, Dr David Irving, studio recordist and popular music and technology expert Dr Samantha Bennett and one of the nation’s leading tenors and early music experts Dr Paul McMahon, were a “prize catch” for the ANU, and indeed for Australia.
“We are thrilled to welcome this magnificent trio, chosen from an extremely competitive international field.
“Drs Irving, Bennett and McMahon are truly outstanding emerging performer-scholars who will enhance and develop our international profile as a leading performance and research school.
“They will also allow ANU to offer substantial new programs in areas of growing cultural and economic importance, such as historically informed performance practice, music in Southeast Asia, popular music and digital musical cultures.”
Dr Irving studied violin and musicology at the Queensland Conservatorium and the University of Queensland and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He held several posts at Cambridge and King's College London before becoming a Lecturer in Music at the University of Nottingham.
He is a distinguished performer on period violin and has worked with many leading early music orchestras in Australia and Europe, including the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Gabrieli Consort & Players, The Hanover Band, La Serenissima, The Early Opera Company and Le Concert Lorrain.
His academic research focuses on intercultural exchange, colonialism, and globalisation from the 16th century to the early 19th century, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia. His first book, Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila (Oxford University Press, 2010), was named one of eighteen “Books of the Year” for 2010 by BBC History Magazine. He is currently working on the impact of Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialism on the musical traditions of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago, and is also writing a book on European music and globalisation in the early modern world.
Dr Bennett is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, London. An accomplished rock performer and studio recordist, in 2007, she was awarded an AHRC Doctoral Scholarship to complete her PhD in Popular Music Recording Techniques.
Her research interests include Anglo American popular music and sound recording; music technology and dissemination and technological analysis of popular music recordings.
She has recently written a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Music and Virtuality, and is completing her first book - Modern Records, Maverick Methods: Technology and Process in Contemporary Record Production - to be published by Michigan University Press as part of their 'Tracking Pop' series. Samantha is the editor for the Journal on the Art of Record Production.
Dr McMahon is one of the country’s leading tenors and early music specialists. His international performing career includes appearances as a soloist with symphony orchestras, chamber music groups and choirs throughout Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Career highlights include Bach’s Johannes Passion with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Mozart’s Requiem with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has over thirty commercial studio recordings, ranging from the soundtrack to the Australian feature film The Bank to English, French and Italian lute songs entitled A Painted Tale and a CD and DVD recording of Handel’s Messiah.
Currently based at the School of Creative Arts, University of Newcastle, Dr McMahon is a highly experienced studio and ensemble teacher of voice, as well as lecturer in music history and historically informed performance. He was awarded a Griffith University Postgraduate Research Scholarship to complete his PhD thesis, which explored the delivery of higher education pedagogy in baroque performance practice. Dr McMahon’s book on George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Battista Draghi was published in Cologne in 2009.
All three will join ANU next year, one early in 2013, the other two mid-year.
More information is available at music.anu.edu.au/people/new-staff-appointments