Lilburn Lecture 2024: The music critic: an endangered species in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Elizabeth Kerr delivers the Lilburn Lecture 2024 at the National Library of New Zealand - Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, 1 November 2024, with an introduction by Peter Walls, Chair of the Music Advisory Committee of the Lilburn Trust, and a vote of thanks by Hannah Darroch, Chief Executive of SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music.

Elizabeth Kerr, music critic and commentator

Photo credit: Mark Beatty/National Library of New Zealand

The annual Lilburn Lecture is presented by the Alexander Turnbull Library, the Lilburn Trust and the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust, to commemorate the iconic New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001). In this, the 11th annual Lilburn Lecture, presented on 1 November, 2024, Elizabeth Kerr, music critic and commentator, looks back to some of the characterful New Zealand music critics of the 20th century, relates some of Lilburn’s own experiences at the hands - or pens - of critics, and outlines her own journey as a commentator and music critic, including the establishment in 2020 of her website Five Lines. She then talks about recent research on declining arts coverage, including criticism, in the media landscape of New Zealand and offers some solutions to the endangered status of music criticism.

Audio recorded by RNZ Concert.

Film created by SOUNZ, Centre for New Zealand Music, and funded by NZ On Air.