John Pax Mulligan (b. 1992) is an electro-acoustic composer, audio engineer, and educator from Kalamunda, Western Australia, currently living in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is currently the Managing Director of the Shelemay Sound Lab at Harvard University.
composer
John’s music draw inspiration from the landscapes, seasons, plants, and animals of the bush where he grew up, and often evokes a longing for a mythology or poetics of this experience. His compositions have been performed by leading ensembles and soloists in Adelaide, Bludenz, Boston, Freiburg, London, Melbourne, Paris, Perth, Rieti, San Diego, Singapore, and Sydney. Others have described his music as "of our time, peaceful, with a sense of anxiety and poignancy”, one in which "the sound phenomenon [is made] emotionally reverberant without any manipulation."
audio engineer
As an audio engineer, John specializes in live audio production of electro-acoustic music. He gained valuable concert production experience with the Harvard Group for New Music, engineering numerous complex electro-acoustic productions between 2015 and 2019 with colleagues. John enjoys working casually as a freelance engineer, often on academic or electro-acoustic projects.
educator
In his current position at Harvard University, John is the founding Director of the Music Department’s Shelemay Sound Lab where he supports and collaborates with faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students on unusual sound projects, as well as oversees their workshop series, artist in residence program and gives guest lectures. He has previous experience as a teaching fellow at Harvard University (2017-19), lecturer at the University of Western Australia (2021), tutor at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (2021), and enjoys private counterpoint and composition tutoring.
training
John holds a Doctorate of Philosophy and a Master of Arts in Music Composition from Harvard University, along with Bachelor's degrees from the Universities of Melbourne (with 1st class honours) and Western Australia. His doctoral work was focused on the expressive and conceptual potentials which arise from the convergence of Judaic existentialism and Ancient Greek poetics. He has been fortunate to discuss his work with composers such as Pierluigi Billone, Brenton Broadstock, Chaya Czernowin, Peter Edwards, Joshua Fineberg, Stuart Greenbaum, Elliott Gyger, James Ledger, Giorgio Nietti, Ruben Seroussi, Paul Stanhope, Chris Tonkin, Ming Tsao, and Hans Tutschku.
pianist
John is an enthusiastic pianist currently interested in Machaut, Chopin, and Bach.
current as of the 16th of December, 2024
johnpax73[at]gmail