Alexander Hunter

Dr Alexander Hunter is a composer with Scottish, German and Red River Métis heritage.

 

He is currently working as the Composition Convenor and Undergraduate Convenor at the Australian National University School of Music on unceded Ngunawal and Ngambri Country.

 

Hunter 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. He has taught composition, music journalism, multimedia performance, theory and history, founded the ANU New Music Ensemble and Experimental Music Studio, and co-founded the ANU Laptop Ensemble (LENS).

 

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.

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Hunter’s current performance-led research is based on collaborative multimedia works, most recently with visual artists Mike Parr, Martyn Jolly, Ngaio Fitzpatrick, Andrew Quinn, John Carolan and Janet Meaney; and dancers Jack Riley and Liz Lea. He is also half of the electronic music duo 'Andromeda is Coming...' with Charles Martin.

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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; open musical forms and notation; and cross-disciplinary models of tertiary arts education.