17 Facts About Gillian Whitehead

Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead was born on 23 April 1941 and is a New Zealand composer.

Gillian Whitehead's father was a music teacher and conductor of the Waipu Choral Society and her mother played the piano.

Gillian Whitehead began composing early, making clear to her mother at age 17 that she wanted to be a composer.

Gillian Whitehead studied at the University of Auckland from 1959 to 1962, and Victoria University of Wellington in 1963, graduating BMus in 1964.

Gillian Whitehead worked in London composing and copying music for two years and then with the assistance of a New Zealand Arts Council grant worked in Portugal and Italy from 1969 to 1970.

Gillian Whitehead took up the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1992.

Gillian Whitehead was the first Composer in Residence to stay at the Lilburn Residence.

In 2009 Gillian Whitehead was one of the 2009 Henderson Arts Trust artists-in-residence in Alexandra.

Gillian Whitehead has written a wide range of music including works for solo, chamber, choral, orchestral and operatic forces, most of them direct commissions from performers and funding organisations.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra commissioned Gillian Whitehead to write a piece to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's arrival in New Zealand; she produced Turanga-nui, referring to the name of Gisborne and Cook's landfall there.

Since her time in London Gillian Whitehead has used Maori themes in her work.

Gillian Whitehead began to incorporate taonga puoro in her work in the 1990s after meeting Hirini Melbourne and Richard Nunns.

Gillian Whitehead has used magic squares in her composition, used by Peter Maxwell Davies and others.

Gillian Whitehead first read about them in the 1970s and used them for the next 20 years.

Gillian Whitehead acknowledged the process of using a systematic approach, its potential and then moving away from it.

Gillian Whitehead has received two awards from the Arts Foundation: an Arts Foundation Laureate in 2000 and an Arts Foundation Icon in 2018.

In 2009, following the reinstatement of titular honours by the New Zealand government, Gillian Whitehead accepted redesignation as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.