AJIRN Conference 2025

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Dr. Tammy Kernodle (USA)

Mr. Rob Thorne (NZ)

The AJIRN committee is dedicated to hearing the voices from the multifaceted tapestry of jazz and improvisation scholarship and performance. As a consequence, the theme for AJIRN 8 conference in 2025 adopts an evaluative and forward-thinking lens, focusing on the current state and future directions of jazz and improvisation research. This theme highlights thriving research areas while also identifying those that merit greater attention and development.

There will be a wide range of contributions, spanning pedagogy, history, analysis, diaspora studies, practice-led research, community engagement, cognitive studies, and beyond. Key discussions will revolve around decolonisation, gender studies, and the value of improvisation as both a creative practice and a research methodology. We encourage research into emerging technologies, including AI, and their impact on jazz and improvisational practice and analysis. The AJIRN 8 conference invites all participants to reflect on our present collective achievements, envision creative futures, and deepen our understanding of jazz and improvisation as an evolving art form.

Our commitment to inclusivity underpins our decision to deliver the AJIRN conference in a hybrid format. This will include ‘on-site’ activities at the University of Auckland as well as the option for remote participation. The hybrid format will include both traditional paper presentations, creative contributions and performances.

Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle is an internationally recognized scholar and musician that teaches and researches in the areas of African American music (concert and popular music) and gender studies in music. Her work has appeared in major peer-reviewed journals including American Studies, Musical Quarterly, Black Music Research Journal, The Journal of the Society of American Music (JSAM), American Music Research Journal, The U.S Catholic Historian, and the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS). She also was a contributor to The African American Lectionary Project, the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip Hop and Rap and the Carnegie Hall Digital Timeline of African American Music. Kernodle served as the Scholar in Residence for the Women in Jazz Initiative at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City from 1999 until 2001. From 2012-2016, Kernodle served as a scholarly consultant for the exhibits entitled “Musical Crossroads” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Over the years she has worked closely with a number of educational programs including the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, Jazz@Lincoln Center, and the National Underground Railroad Museum. She has contributed to programming with NPR, Canadian Public Radio, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and the BBC. She appears in a number of award-winning documentaries including Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band and Girls in the Band, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, How It Feels to Be Free and most recently The Disappearance of Hazel Scott. 

New Zealand Māori composer, performer, improvisor, collaborator, anthropologist and specialist Rob Thorne M.A. (Ngāti Tumutumu) is a diverse and original explorer in the evolving journey of Taonga Puoro (traditional Māori instruments), fusing these ancient voices with modern sounds and technology. His debut solo album Whaia te Maramatanga (Rattle Records) is a deeply felt and highly concentrated conversation between the past and the present - a musical passage of identity and connection. 

Using modern looping technology and traditional Māori flutes and horns made from stone, bone, shell and wood, Rob creates a transcendent aural experience that touches the soul with timeless beauty. Every performance of "Whāia te Māramatanga" is a stunning and very personal exploration of the spiritual and healing qualities of an ancient practise. 

Rob’s combined musical and academic experience and skills are multitudinal. A musician with over 25 years performance experience in bands and solo, predominantly within alternative rock, free noise, experimental, and improvisational sound art, his work since 2001 with traditional Māori musical instruments (taonga pūoro) has seen him complete an MA in Social Anthropology, and since 2008, incorporate this diverse experience to create long, beautifully transcendent, ambient compositions using loops, intelligently blending the modern with the ancient: a format that is now being picked up and utilised by many taonga pūoro players.

His journey of identity has seen him travel the country to research museum collections, teach and lecture, present as keynote, demonstrate, collaborate and perform, working academically and musically with both traditional and sonic masters including Richard Nunns and Phil Dadson. His Post Graduate Diploma research became a museum exhibition "Kōauau: The Music Within", which successfully toured New Zealand regionally for 5 years and awoke many to the natural ease with which the instruments can be made and played.