Dr Jesse Austin-Stewart

Dr Jesse Austin-Stewart

Music Practice Major Coordinator, Lecturer - School of Music and Screen Arts , Te Rewa o Puanga

Dr Jesse Austin-Stewart (he/him) is a composer, sound artists, producer, and researcher based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

 

Jesse is physically disabled and neurodivergent, and his research seeks to promote accessibility for tāngata whaikaha Māori, d/Deaf, and disabled peoples within music and the creative industries.

 

As a sound artist and composer, he has composed for contemporary dance and film and created performance art works and sound installations. His work has been exhibited across Aotearoa, Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Japan, Sweden, USA, and more.

 

Jesse is a recipient of the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Springboard Award and has been nominated for the international Sound of the Year Awards. His work has represented Aotearoa numerous times and has received nominations at the Student Radio Network awards. As a producer, he has recorded work for short films, orchestra, solo artists and bands, small ensemble, opera, and his work has received over 2,900,000 streams online.

 

His work has been feature in numerous local and international publications including NME, MixMag, MusicTech, The Spinoff, RNZ, Stuff, as well as academic publications, and has been funded by Creative New Zealand, NZ On Air, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture & Hertiage, NZ Music Commission, and more.

 

Jesse is a self-described "girly pop stan" and spends his spare time following the Wellington Phoenix in between hanging out with his ginger cat Johnny and waking up at unseemly hours of the morning to keep up with Formula 1.

 

VIDEOS
Music for Playstation
Ka emiemi - Aotearoa's Exhibition for Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023
Waterfront Monophony (2023)
Four Swinging Speakers
miss u RD1 - woof woof lol

  • Expertise

    Accessible Design, Popular Music Studies

  • Research Highlights

    Music for PlayStation, an audio installation work that was selected to represent Aotearoa at the International Symposium of Contemporary Music, Faroe Islands, 2024.

     

    Sound of the Year Awards – 2023 Nominee for Best Sound Innovation in Everyday Life - Music for PlayStation

     

    Ka emiemi – a design director of the team that produced  the representative work of Aotearoa at the 2023 Prague Quadrienniel of Performance Design and Space

     

    Australasian Computer Music Conference – 2023 Best Professional Paper

     

    The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi – Springboard Award, 2022

     

    5 Moving Speakers, an audio installation work that was selected to represent Aotearoa at the International Symposium of Contemporary Music, New Zealand, 2022

  • Professional Affiliations

    APRA, Composer’s Association of New Zealand, Australasian Computer Music Association, International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Australia New Zealand