2026 SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha finalists announced
The SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha is New Zealand’s premier composition award, celebrating excellence in contemporary composition. The award is presented annually at the APRA Silver Scroll Awards | Kaitito Kaiaka.
Top four finalists:
- curio by Ihlara McIndoe for chamber ensemble and soprano
- Light Lines by Dylan Lardelli for string trio
- Partial Forms by Michael Norris and Nicholas Denton Protsack for cello and electronics
- Soft Logic by Samuel Holloway for piano
More about each finalist below.
curio by Ihlara McIndoe
A pilgrimage through an ephemeral scape where surrealist dreams become collage, where we trod upon sea slime and broken pottery, and the pathway towards understanding is both intimately embodied yet severed from awareness, curio explores the act of holding and examining one’s own heart within a specimen jar.
curio was written for the 2025 Composers Conference at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute (New Hampshire, USA), with the support of a Fromm Foundation Composer Fellowship. It was premiered by the Conference Ensemble with soprano Sharon Harms, conducted by Tian Hui Ng.
Ihlara McIndoe is a composer from Ōtepoti Dunedin currently based in New York. Her compositional work draws on themes of exploration and preservation to investigate artistic ecologies and creative modes of (re)thinking, (re)making and remembering.
Listen to curio by Ihlara McIndoe
Light Lines by Dylan Lardelli
In his first work for string trio, Dylan Lardelli explores the emergence of delicate musical lines from shifting, unstable foundations. Light Lines draws inspiration from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and his fragment, “The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings,” the work reflects the idea that cosmic unity emerges from opposites and continuous change.
Educated in Wellington, Venice, and Germany, Dylan has held major international residencies, including at Kulturkontakt Vienna, Tokyo Wonder Site, the Mozart Fellowship, and has twice received the APRA Art Music Award, supporting international tours of his music. His work explores gesture, colour, physicality, memory, and extended instrumental practices, with performances and commissions by leading ensembles and festivals across Europe, Asia, and New Zealand.
Listen to Light Lines by Dylan Lardelli
Partial Forms by Michael Norris and Nicholas Denton Protsack
Partial Forms is an hour-long sonic journey for cello and live electronics, featuring a collaboration between acclaimed Canadian/New Zealand composer-cellist Nicholas Denton Protsack and New Zealand composer/sound artist Michael Norris. The work is conceived as a traversal of shifting terrains of sound and space, with its eight movements each shaped by themes, textures and gestures drawn from the natural landscapes and soundscapes of Aotearoa and Canada.
With evocative titles such as Aeolian Fields, Tararua Mists and Spectral Cascades, each movement invites the listener into a different world where nature, memory and technology intertwine. All tracks are composed and performed by Nicholas Denton Protsack (cello and electronics) and Michael Norris (electronics).
Nicholas’ projects as a cellist are often collaborative in nature, spanning both experimental and post-classical idioms. He is a founding member of Moth Quartet in New Zealand as well as the Canadian-based groups Branchroot Ensemble and Sounds Like Things.
Michael Norris is a composer, concert curator, software developer and music theorist at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.
Listen to Partial Forms by Michael Norris & Nicholas Denton Protsack
Soft Logic by Samuel Holloway
Samuel Holloway is a composer and educator from Tāmaki Makaurau. His music attends to ambiguous affective states, such as boredom, and the ways our experience of time is shaped through variation and repetition.
His work ranges from orchestral and chamber music for concert performance to multi-modal installation, and has been presented by leading artists, ensembles, and institutions across Aotearoa, Asia, and Europe.
His piece Soft Logic was written for pianist Stephen De Pledge. Of this work, he writes: “This piece arose from several compositional preoccupations: states of affective ambiguity and equivocation; tensions between system and intuition, accumulation and development; and the simple play of musical relations: why does this thing follow that?”
Listen to Soft Logic by Samuel Holloway
The winner will be announced at the 61st APRA Silver Scroll Awards | Kaitito Kaiaka, as part of APRA's 100 year anniversary celebrations, this October.
The other awards presented on the night are:
- APRA Silver Scroll Award | Kaitito Kaiaka
- SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha
- APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award | Tohu Pūmanawa
- APRA Best Original Music in a Series Award | Tohu Paerangi
- Te Tihi o te Maunga Tito | Kapa Haka Songwriting Award
SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music is an arts and music organisation that champions and promotes the sounds and music of Aotearoa New Zealand. Learn more here.
More information:
- About the APRA Silver Scroll Awards
- Playlist celebrating the Scroll Top 20 & Maioha Top 11
- How the winner of the APRA Silver Scroll Award Kaitito Kaiaka is chosen
- Past presentations and performances
With thanks to NZ On Air, Te Māngai Pāho, OneMusic NZ, TAG, Radisson RED Auckland, Framingham Wines, Hallertau, and Scapegrace.
