THE new head of the ANU School of Music will be composer and ethnomusicologist Associate Prof Kim Cunio, the university has announced today. (January 31)

Cunio replaces Prof Ken Lampl in the position and will commence his three-year term this week.

Already a senior lecturer at the ANU in composition and convenor of musicology, Cunio, who trained at the University of Western Sydney, the University of Newcastle and University of Technology Sydney, has studied with Australian composer Nigel Butterly, conductor and producer Eric Clapham, and jazz guitar legend Ike Isaacs.

In April he was behind the launch of a new ANU record label and, like Lampl, is likely to continue the school’s focus on up-and-coming composers.

A respected composer and performer, he was awarded an ABC Golden Manuscript Award in recognition of his work with traditional music, but his work ranges over opera, music theatre, orchestra, in his research component, he combines anthropological work with transcription and is part of an international push to preserve the dying art of Eastern Jewish Mizrachi music.

Some of his recent commissions and projects include, “Beyond Karma” with the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, Ishq, music for Khalili collection of Islamic Art at the Art Gallery of NSW and working with researcher Genevieve Campbell on her project researching music of the TIWI Islands.

Cunio’s music has been played around the world, including performances at the White House, and his list of commissions includes the Olympics, The Art Gallery of NSW, The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Foundation for Universal Sacred Music (USA), and many others.

Like his predecessor Prof Lampl, he has also written a significant body of music for screen, resulting in nominations for two Guild of Screen Composers Awards.