Professor Anthony Ritchie, Nathaniel Otley, Ihlara McIndoe, and Emeritus Professor Peter Adams. Ihlara says Anthony and Peter are very important mentors to her and husband Nathaniel.
Ōtepoti Dunedin composer Ihlara McIndoe has won the 2025 SOUNZ Contemporary Award Te Tohu Auaha, announced at the APRA Silver Scrolls ceremony on Wednesday 29 October.
Ihlara McIndoe
Ihlara says it is made even more special that her husband and fellow Otago music graduate, Nathaniel Otley, received the same award in 2024.
“This award is a fantastic celebration of composition in Aotearoa. So many of my mentors and composers who I look up to have been finalists and recipients of this award. It's pretty surreal to be part of this list and I'm thrilled that my work has been recognised in this way,” Ihlara says.
Ihlara is a graduate of Otago’s Music programme and is currently a doctoral fellow in composition and teaching assistant at Columbia University in New York.
“Studying music at the University of Otago has hugely shaped who I am as an artist. I feel incredibly fortunate to have completed my undergraduate music composition studies with Professors Anthony Ritchie and Peter Adams, as well as the then Mozart Fellows Chris Gendall and Dylan Lardelli, all of whom were phenomenally impactful mentors in various ways.
“Just as much as mentors, a peer cohort is so important as an artist, and I was privileged at Otago to be part of a vibrant music scene. Studying at Otago offered us a space to take risks, an impetus to collaborate, and an environment to develop creative skills, curiosity, and resilience,” Ihlara says.
Professor Anthony Ritchie, with the Music programme in the School of Performing Arts, says he and his colleagues are delighted at their former student’s win.
“Ihlara was one of our most talented and imaginative composition students. I am over the moon she has won the SOUNZ Contemporary; her piece is thought- provoking and highly original.”
Ihlara’s winning composition ‘of coral and foam’ is a work for string quartet with live and electronic vocalisations, incorporating texts by Katherine Mansfield. This has been performed by the Rhythm Method Quartet in New York City.
“It was a joy to write this work for the Rhythm Method. Their approach of reimagining the string quartet from a contemporary feminist perspective is one that I really took to heart in writing this work, and one that aligns with my own goals as a composer,” Ihlara says.
- Listen to ‘of coral and foam’ performed by the Rhythm Method Quartet
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