Oscar Smith
Research Area
Education
B.Mus (Composition) Honours Class 1, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney
Ph.D., Ethnomusicology, University of British Columbia, 2025 (expected)
About
I’m an Australian ethnomusicologist and composer currently undertaking doctoral studies in ethnomusicology at UBC. My passion for music began in church music as a boy treble and organist. After high school, I studied composition, and it was at this time that I became quite taken by the music of Bali, Indonesia, going there to study instrumental techniques, and later trying my hand at composing for gamelan ensembles there. My gamelan compositions have been performed by Gamelan Salukat, Gamelan Çudamani, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Gamelan Ensemble. The experiences I had in Bali caused me to shift my direction to research in ethnomusicology. The research I have published since then is drawn from my pathway as a composer, using that as a research methodology. Since starting at UBC, I have learnt new music-analytical techniques that shape my current research in world music analysis through the lens of entrainment and cognition.
Research
Balinese Gamelan, contemporary composition in Bali, music analysis, rhythm analysis, orality, entrainment, music cognition
Publications
Media
My major gamelan composition “Waringin”:
Conference presentation “Konnakol Duet in a 75-pulse Tāla: A Comparison of Analytical Representations”:
Conference presentation “Rhythmic Complexity in Intercultural Music Projects in Bali”: