2024 Composers

2024 Composers: Benjamin Lang, Tim Evans, Grace Wellik, Thorin Williams, Cameron Monteath, Lauren Doherty, Rafael Hosking, Jacob Barrett

Jacob Barrett

Although my musical journey began with a love of acoustic guitar and Def Leppard's classic albums, these days I have a very broad range of musical interests and compose music for everything from rock bands to orchestras, barbershops, jazz bands, concert bands, and musical theatre groups!

I am particularly interested in exploring cross cultural collaborations between New Zealand and other musical traditions from around the world in my music. However, my core artistic goal is to create music with a positive social impact.

Some notable works that I have written include Irisado for mixed ensemble, Celesta for trumpet/cornet and piano (highly commended in the 2022 SOUNZ Brass Composition Award), Rattlesnake (3rd place at the 2021 Lilburn Trust NZSM Composer's Competition, and winner of the 2021 Matthew Marshall Prize for Guitar Composition), and Countdown to Midnight at Carnaval (commissioned by the Susan Rhind Award in Composition, premiered by the Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music Orchestra).

Lauren Doherty

Lauren Doherty is in her third year at the New Zealand School of Music - Te Kōkī, completing a double major in Composition and Sonic Arts, with a minor in music studies and a specialisation in film scoring. She is most passionate about telling stories inspired by her heritage, paying homage to those who have shaped her voice. She is inspired by traditional celtic music, and interested in its interconnection through mythology, ideology and poetic expression to indigenous Māori music and culture - from the perspective of peoples/cultures that have been colonised. Her musical interest lies in electroacoustic and electronic music, and the way these can interact with classical and traditional forms of acoustic performance. Most notably, she placed third in the NZSM Lilburn Trust Composers Competition in 2023, was awarded the Rebekah Wilson Scholarship for Sonic Arts and was selected as the 2021 SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company Composer in residence.

Tim Evans

Tim Evans (b. 2003) is an emerging composer and vocalist currently based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Hailing from Kirikiriroa Hamilton, Tim believes in the humanity of music, that the beauty of music making is in the interpersonal connections we make when playing and listening. They relish live performance and see a simple beauty in the composition of contemporary concert works. Tim has performance experience amongst a number of prestigious ensembles, such as the New Zealand Youth Choir, which inform the way they write. Often, their music is built on the dissonance of the second - an interval which feels visceral in performance and creates beautiful beating effects when heard live. Their music carries a nostalgic tone, with much of their work taking inspiration from the composer’s memory and identity.

Rafael Hosking

Rafael is a composer and guitarist currently studying Classical Composition and Jazz Performance at Te Kōkī, the New Zealand School of Music. He is involved in a number of projects and spaces around Wellington, recently playing the inaugural Racket Lounge session. He was a finalist at last year’s Lilburn Composition Competition, has had works performed around Pōneke on a number of occasions, and had his piano trio piece “To Whom Do You Beautifully Belong?” performed and workshopped by NZTrio.

In 2021, while in his final year of college, Rafael studied composition at the University of Auckland under the tutelage of Leonie Holmes and Chris Gendal. This experience was both inspiring and eye-opening, and ultimately the reason for Rafael’s move to Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Compositionally, Rafael is interested in textural, self-contained compositions that are introspective yet universal. These compositions often involve extended techniques, improvisation, and other compositional devices that serve to continually search for new sonic landscapes.

Benjamin Lang

Benjamin Lang is a composer based in Wellington, New Zealand, currently studying classical instrumental and vocal composition at Victoria University’s School of Music, with a specialisation in film scoring. His background in music began through piano lessons during his time in intermediate school, where he would slowly begin to build his musical identity through analysing, performing, and arranging pieces from both film and video game soundtracks. During the 2020 lockdown, he would also discover heavy metal, and begin incorporating its stylings in his own writing, heavily influencing his sound and composition process.

His composition style heavily involves drawing inspiration from visual arts and writings, most particularly how the other forms of art evoke emotion and tell their stories, and how their elements can be incorporated into the musical and sonic worlds.

Cameron Moneath

Cameron is a composer and musician from Dunedin. He holds a Bachelor of Music endorsed in Piano Performance and Composition under Blair Professor Terence Dennis and Professor Anthony Ritchie, and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in French and minoring in German from the University of Otago. He is currently completing his honours year in performance and composition at this institution. His compositions have won numerous accolades, and he is active as a pianist across the Otago region as a solo performer, chamber musician, and accompanist. He also plays the viola; he studied with Tessa Petersen for two years, and he currently plays in Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, as well as twice previously being a member of the National Youth Orchestra. He is employed as a university tutor in music theory at the university, and holds an ATCL in Recorder Performance. He is a grateful recipient of the Emerging Practitioner FAME Award.

Grace Wellik

Grace Wellik is currently studying composition at The University of Auckland and is the 2024 Young Composer in Residence for Auckland Youth Choir. Singing with the New Zealand Youth Choir and Auckland Youth Choir, alongside training with the New Zealand Choral Federation as a Young Conductor, Wellik is a versatile musician whose work traverses a multitude of areas within the music industry. Most recently writing for Cantorum Chamber Choir and Auckland Youth Choir, Wellik explores marrying traditional classical compositional ideas and techniques with a voice that is present, magical, and undeniably New Zealand. There is a soft hopefulness to Wellik’s compositions; aiming to transport listeners into honest and nostalgic narratives. Stripping back the weight of modern life, Wellik’s music reminds us that at the core of humanity is the connections we have with others.

Thorin Williams

Thorin Williams is a fourth-year BMus(Hons) student, completing his research in Instrumental and Vocal Composition and Sonic Art at the New Zealand School of Music – Te Kōkī. He enjoys all forms of composition but is particularly interested in the perception of music, both in terms of performance and listening. Thorin also looks for ways to introduce randomness into his works, enjoying the interaction between the piece’s form and this unpredictability. Lately, he has been integrating these ideas with the concept of liminal states and spaces, attempting to describe this uncharted atmosphere. Thorin intends to explore this idea by writing a suite of works for orchestra and other ensembles.