Writer, musician, and broadcaster Nick Bollinger has been awarded the 2023 Lilburn Research Fellowship, which he will formally take up tin January 2023.

The author of the book 100 Essential New Zealand Albums, amongst several others, Bollinger is highly regarded as a leading music reviewer and journalist for national and international media outlets and publications. His work in the music field has been wide-ranging, including decades presenting the weekly RNZ review programme The Sampler.  He will receive a $70,000 stipend, an office at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, and access to its collections, which he intends to use to research and write a book on culture, class and identity in NZ music. Exploring historic thinking on the subject. 

“Being the Lilburn Fellow will give me the time to examine in-depth ideas about music and New Zealand life that I’ve only been able to touch on in my previous work. It will also enable me to dig deep into the relevant archives.

Bollinger previously received the 2019 Friends Of The Turnbull Library research grant and 2021 J.D. Stout Fellowship In New Zealand Studies to write the book Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand, which will be published in August 2022.