2017 Lilburn Research Fellowship recipient announced

Media release

Tuesday 13 December 2016

Dr Aleisha Ward announced as the 2017 Lilburn Research Fellowship recipient

The Alexander Turnbull Library and the Lilburn Trust are pleased to announce Dr Aleisha Ward as the 2017 Lilburn Research Fellowship recipient.

The Fellowship was established as a biennial award in 2012 with funding provided by the Lilburn Trust and in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library – part of the National Library of New Zealand. The first appointment was made in 2013.

The aim of the Lilburn Research Fellowship is to encourage scholarly research leading to publication on some aspect of New Zealand and music, using the resources of the Archive of New Zealand Music of the Alexander Turnbull Library and its wider published and unpublished collections.

It is the only fellowship currently available in New Zealand that specifically supports research into New Zealand music.

Dr Ward will be using the $70,000 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,” Dr Ward said.

“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 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.

Dr Ward plans to spend much of next year at the National Library in Wellington, but will also be using the fellowship as an opportunity to examine archival holdings in other institutions in New Zealand and Australia.

The Alexander Turnbull Library is delighted to be hosting Dr Ward’s research next year.

“The Archive of New Zealand Music holds extensive collections relating to jazz in New Zealand including the Dennis Huggard Jazz Archive and the papers of New Zealand’s foremost jazz broadcaster of the mid-twentieth century, Arthur Pearce,” said Alexander Turnbull Library Curator Music Michael Brown.

“These and other collections will provide rich resources for Dr Ward’s project.”

Ends

Background about the fellowship:

· The Fellowship was established as a biennial award in 2012 with funding provided by the Lilburn Trust and in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library – part of the National Library of New Zealand.
· The first appointment was made in 2013.
· The aim of the Lilburn Research Fellowship is to encourage scholarly research leading to publication on some aspect of New Zealand and music, using the resources of the Archive of New Zealand Music of the Alexander Turnbull Library and its wider published and unpublished collections.
· It is the only fellowship currently available in New Zealand that specifically supports research into New Zealand music.
· Dr Ward will be using the $70,000 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’.

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