Associate Professor Bruce Crossman

Bruce Crossman is a composer with interests across visual arts, East Asian architecture, poetry and music (classical, traditional world and improvisatory musics) with a focus on Asian-Pacific musical identity. He holds a Doctor of Creative Arts from Wollongong University with other degrees from the University of York and Otago University and has achieved international recognition with performances in Australasia, Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines), Europe and the USA. Highlights include working with the Kanagawa Philharmonic (Japan), Korean Symphony Orchestra, New Asia String Quartet at the Pacific Rim Music Festival in the USA, and with Kawamura Taizan (shakuhachi) at the Asian Music Festival 2010 in Tokyo and shihans Tomotsune Bizan and Kikuchi Kouzan’s for the Opening Concert ‘Asia, Asia, Asia’, Yokohama Minato-Mirai Hall at Asian Music Festival 2014 in Japan. His practice-led research projects include performances at the ISCM World New Music Days in Beijing and Asian Composers League Festival and Conference in Taiwan in 2018, The Keyboard in the 21st Century: An International Conference for Composers, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, SAR China in 2019, and collaborations with Korean Gugak performers, gayageum master Yi Jiyoung (Seoul) and taegum virtuoso Hyelim Kim (London) for a 2021 album release by Navona (USA). His research included working as Scholar-in-Residence, at the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI) in Hong Kong. National recognition has come from Australia and New Zealand with awards and composer residencies. Highlights include a Finalist Nomination in the APRA-Australian Music Centre Classical Music Awards, Commission for The ANAM Set, Australian National Academy of Music, and the Mozart Fellowship at Otago University.

Crossman has organized multiple research projects linking practice and scholarship with international linkage and publication outcomes (performance-based and refereed). Highlights include, working with Grawemeyer Award winner Chinary Ung (USA) at Aurora Festival 2008 and invitations as a Collaborator, Aichi University of the Arts, Japan in 2015, Composer, National Sun Yat-sen University Taiwan in 2019, Panellist, at Seoul National University’s 2021 SNU Online Winter Music Festival in Korea, Scholar/Artist-in-Residence, Seoul National University, South Korea in 2022, and advisory work for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York (USA).

As a scholar he is interested in creative reflective-practice and has published several articles and edited books linking traditional musics of the Pacific Rim with European compositional techniques; several highlights include co-editing Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific Musical Identity with Michael Atherton, and contributing "Living Colours: An Asian-Pacific Conceptual Frame for Composition" as a chapter in Sally Macarthur’s (ed) Music’s Immanent Future: The Deleuzian Turn in Music Studies (Ashgate, 2016).

Crossman is an experienced teacher who has held multiple academic positions and supervised many postgraduates, including composers, improvisers and visual artists. He has served as Discipline/Professional Field Leader, Music and Music Therapy (2019-22) and currently holds the position of Associate Professor, Music in the Music and Music Therapy Discipline, School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University.