Dr Alexander Hunter
Areas of expertise
- Music Composition 190406
- Music Performance 190407
- Musicology And Ethnomusicology 190409
- Interactive Media 190205
- Electronic Media Art 190203
- Computer Gaming And Animation 190202
Research interests
- Open/Non-linear Music (especially mobile moment form)
- Open Music Notation (graphic, prose, game pieces, etc.)
- Spectralism
- Acoustic Ecology
- Generative, Interactive and Dynamic Music
- Intersectional Feminism in musical composition and performance
- Dis/ability and autism in the arts
- Anarchism in musical composition and performance
- Improvisation Ensembles
- nêhiyaw/Métis culture
Biography
Dr Alexander Hunter is an autistic and disabled composer with Scottish, German and Red River Métis heritage. He studied composition, double bass, viola da gamba and ethnomusicology at Northern Illinois University, and received a PhD in composition from Edinburgh Napier University. In 2014 he relocated to Canberra to take up a lecturing position at the Australian National University School of Music. Hunter has taught composition, theory and history, and founded the ANU Experimental Music Studio. His work as a composer is based on open works, which encourage a fluid relationship between composer, score and performer.
As a composer Hunter has worked with the following performers/ensembles: Mabel Kwan (Chicago), the Quiet Music Ensemble (Cork), Pesedjet (members of Chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente), the Chimera Ensemble (York), the Edinburgh Quartet (Edinburgh), Scottish Voices (Glasgow), ensemble a.pe.ri.od.ic (Chicago) and others.
Hunter’s current performance-led research is based on collaborative multimedia works, most recently with visual artists Mike Parr, Martyn Jolly (Former Head of ANU Photography and Media Arts), Ngaio Fitzpatrick (ANU Climate Change Institute), Andrew Quinn, John Carolan and Janet Meaney; and dancers Jack Riley and Liz Lea.
As a researcher his work has been focused on the music of the New York School; reductionist improvisers and other improvisers and improvisation ensembles; the writings of Rob Haskins and Jonathan D. Kramer; feminism, anarchism and leftist politics in composition and performance; and open musical forms and notation.
Current student projects
- Nicholas Moynihan (PhD): Electronic Music and Phenomenology (Chair and Primary Supervisor)
- Lachlan Coventry (PhD): Creative Practice in Jazz Guitar, Composition and Improvisation informed by Visual Arts, Literature and Poetry. (Associate Supervisor)
- Rachael Thoms (PhD): Merging Pedagogies: A hybrid approach to tertiary jazz and contemporary vocal improvisation training (Associate Supervisor)
- Llewellyn Osborne (MPhil): jazz violin performance, pedagogy and performance
- Chloë Hobbs (PhD - out for review):The Use of Orchestration and Structure in the Exploration of Fluid Musical Hierarchies (Chair and Primary Supervisor)
- Thomas Connell (PhD): Ludomusicology research (Associate Supervisor)
- Nardi Simpson (PhD): composition research (Associate Supervisor)
- Elizabeth Sheppard (MPhil): Yoora Tattoo Music : a two way approach to Indigenous composition (Associate Supervisor)
Publications
- Jolly, M, deCourcy, E, Hunter, A et al. 2021, 'J. W. Newland�s "Beautiful Scientific Exhibition of Dissolving Views" reinterpreted in 2021'.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A, deCourcy, E et al. 2020, 'Magic lantern performance, 'Suburban Apparitions', for ACT Historic Places at Calthorpe's House. Dr Alexander Hunter, Dr Charles Martin, Dr Elisa DeCourcy, Dr Waratah Lahy'.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A, Martin, C et al. 2020, Magic lantern performance, Suburban Apparitions, for ACT Historic Places at Calthorpes House.
- Swift, B, Martin, C & Hunter, A 2019, 'Two Perspectives on Rebooting Computer Music Education: Composition and Computer Science (2019)', Seeing the inaudible, hearing the invisible, Published by the Australasian Computer Music Association, Australia, pp. 53-57.
- Jolly, M, deCourcy, E, Hunter, A et al. 2019, Magic lantern performance, The Australian Object: Material Culture in Context, National Art School and Power Institute, Sydney, 4 October.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A, deCourcy, E et al. 2018, 'Five Scenes from a Modern Prometheus - Magic Lantern Conference September 2018'.
- Jolly, M, deCourcy, E, Hunter, A et al. 2018, A magic lantern show demonstrating scientific truths, Imagineers in Circus and Science: Scientific Knowledge and Creative Imagination.
- Jolly, M, deCourcy, E, Hunter, A et al. 2017, Magic lantern show, for the Transit Lounge of Photography Symposium, Centre for Contemporary Photography and Deakin University, 21 October. Curated by Patrick Pound.
- Conroy, R & Hunter, A 2017, Fencelines #1.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A & Martin, C 2016, 'Canberra Obscura'.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A, Jolly, C et al 2016, 'Double drowning fatality'.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A, Martin, C et al 2016, 'Heritage in the limelight Various Venues (2012-2016)'.
- Jolly, M, Hunter, A, Martin, C et al 2016, 'Magic Lantern Horror Show'.
- Hunter, A 2014, An Investigation into Contemporary Open Musical Forms: Moving beyond practice emanating in response to the innovations of the New York School.
- Hunter, A 2014, Lise Meitner Soprano, Electric Guitar and Sustaining Keyboard Instrument (2014).
- Hunter, A 2013, Emmy Noether.
- Hunter, A & Davis, L 2012, 'Three Looped Electric Bass Pieces for a Video Installation'.
- Hunter, A 2008, Bass clarinet, Violoncello and Percussion.
- Hunter, A 2008, For Mabel.
- Hunter, A 2007, For Four String Players.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- AI for Decision Making: Open-Form Music Composition for Synchronised and Coordinated Action (Secondary Investigator)