David Chisholm

David Chisholm is an internationally recognized composer and artistic innovator, celebrated for his diverse and collaborative approach to music and interdisciplinary art. His contributions have earned him six Green Room Awards, an APRA AMCOS Art Music Award, a French Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Award, a Highly Commended Paul Lowin Prize, a Mention at the 36th Bourges International Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Electronic Art, a Special Mention at the X Media Forum (31st International Film Festival, Moscow), the Medibank Private State and National Arts Awards, and the National Young Achiever of the Year accolade.

David’s work has been showcased in some of the world’s most contrasting contexts including World Pride Sydney 2023, Black Box Okhala New Delhi, Ebila Hall Tokyo, Venice Biennale (Web Pavilion), Villa Medici in Rome, EMPAC New York, the Edinburgh, Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne Festivals, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, ISCM World New Music Days (Sweden), MONA FOMA, Dansescenen (Copenhagen), GAM Santiago, Monaco Dance Forum and the Ao Tea Centre. His compositions have been performed by an impressive roster of ensembles and organizations, including the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Auckland Philharmonia,  International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Vortex, defunensemble, Ensemble Taller, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Argonaut, Melbourne Youth Orchestra, New Zealand, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Golden Fur Latitude 37, Silo String Quartet, and The Australian Ballet/Sonic Art Ensemble.

A visionary leader, David was the founding Artistic Director and CEO of the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music, steering the festival from its dynamic launch to seven celebrated annual editions between 2012 and 2019. He also served as Composer-in-Residence for Phillip Adams’ BalletLab (2006–2010), an Associate Artist for Malthouse Theatre in 2014, and was an Australia Council for the Arts Composer-in-Residence at HIAP in Helsinki, Finland, in 2017. Notably, he was the first Australian composer featured at the Encuentro Internacional de Compositores in Santiago, Chile (2018), and the first Australasian composer commissioned by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.  

David’s academic contributions are equally distinguished. Between 2012 and 2018, he lectured and tutored at Monash University while completing his PhD at the University of Melbourne. In early 2019, he joined Te Whare o ngā Pūkōrero Pūoro | School of Music at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland as a Senior Lecturer and Composition Convenor. By late 2020, he assumed the role of Urumatua o te kura | Head of School , where he continues to shape the future of music education and creativity in Aotearoa | New Zealand. In November 2024 he was a guest lecturer at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, and is currently the co-lead researcher with Associate Professor Basak Senova  for "The Atlas of Creative Mechanisms" at Angewandte|University of Applied Arts Vienna as at the recipients of a FWF Austrian Science Fund (2022-2026) and co-researcher/composer on generative AI creative processes for orchestral forms "Fountain" with Professor Rodrigo Cádiz at Pontifical Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago.