Oscar Murakami-Smith

Postdoctoral Fellow
Musicology
Music Research and Composition Department

Biography

Oscar Murakami-Smith is an Australian ethnomusicologist, composer, educator, and countertenor. His research focuses on various dimensions of Balinese gamelan music, ranging from ensemble interaction and entrainment to issues in the vibrant contemporary composition scene in Bali, Indonesia. Oscar’s research has a strong analytical leaning, bridging between the subdisciplines of ethnomusicology, music theory, and music cognition. He serves as co-chair of the joint SEM/SMT Special Interest Group for Music Analysis of World Music and is an associate editor for the Analytical Approaches to World Music (AAWM) journal.

As a postdoctoral researcher at Western, his project, Musical Interaction and Layering in Indonesian Percussion Traditions: An Ethnographic and Empirical Investigation, looks at the overlap between musical texture and performance timing and synchronisation in Balinese gamelan and Dayak kentangan ensembles. He uses onset detection to measure synchrony, connects these low-level processes to higher-level inter-part relationships through computational analyses of texture, and then interprets these findings with the help of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with musicians. He works closely with Prof. Jonathan De Souza, whose work on the theorisation of texture using social network diagrams has important synergies with Oscar’s project.

Born and raised in Sydney, Oscar earned his B.Mus (Composition) Hons I at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. He then completed a Ph.D. in Music (Ethnomusicology) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver where he worked with Michael Tenzer, distinguished for his work on Balinese music and analytical approaches to world music. Oscar’s research has received recognition through awards from the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD), the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), and the Musicological Society of Australia (MSA).

Oscar’s gamelan compositions have been performed by Gamelan Salukat, Nata Swara, Nada Tuju, Gamelan Çudamani, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Gamelan Ensemble. As part of his work as an ethnomusicologist, he has used composition as a research method, valuable for the special insights it offers for issues related to entrainment, such as rhythm and timing.

As an instructor, Oscar has already developed an international teaching portfolio, working at The University of Sydney, Western Washington University (Bellingham, WA), and Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Langley, BC). As a TA at the University of British Columbia School of Music, he taught across the disciplines of ethnomusicology, musicology, and music theory. For his teaching, he won the Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in 2023.

As a countertenor, Oscar has sung in Sydney with cathedral choirs of St Andrew's and St Mary’s, the parish of Christ Church St Laurence, the St Paul’s College Choir, The Song Company, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Choir and the National Youth Choir of Australia. In Vancouver he worked with St James' Anglican Church and Christ Church Cathedral Vancouver.

In addition to playing most gamelan instruments, Oscar also plays the mbira dzavadzimu of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. He used to pursue photography professionally, and especially enjoyed working on live performances with a number of orchestras, opera companies, chamber groups, and choirs. He enjoys cooking and taking walks with his wife, Risa Murakami-Smith.

Oscar frequently updates a personal website that has links to publications, recordings, performances, and more.