Award-winning composer and violinist Salina Fisher will be the Composer-in-Residence for 2019 at Victoria University of Wellington’s NZ School of Music – Te Kōkī.

Salina graduated from NZSM in 2015 with a Postgraduate Diploma in Music with Distinction. She was awarded the Fulbright NZ General Graduate Award to study her Master of Music in Composition at the Manhattan School of Music, New York. She graduated in May this year, winning the Carl Kanter Award in Orchestral Composition for her thesis work Murmuring Light.

“I am extremely thrilled and grateful to have this opportunity to return to Wellington and focus on creating new works. Wellington has inspired several of my pieces so far, and I am beyond excited to feel its energy again and reconnect with its creative community through the NZSM,” Salina says.

In 2016, Salina became the youngest winner of the Contemporary Award for composition, which she won again the following year. NZSM Composition Programme Director Associate Professor Michael Norris says Salina’s music combines a deep understanding of the conventional chamber and orchestral repertoire with a uniquely Asian-Pacific perspective. 

“In addition to being an internationally performed composer, she is also an extremely accomplished violinist, having played with the NZ Symphony Orchestra in a number of concerts. She brings that intimate knowledge of the physicality of instrumental performance to her works,” he says.

Salina will move back to Wellington to start her 12-month residency in July. She plans to work on a number of new pieces including one for shakuhachi, koto, viola and cello, a new piano trio, and an orchestral work featuring pūtōrino.