Research interests

• Intermedial and collaborative music creation practice
• Choreographic implications of sound spatialisation in live performance
• Electronic music production and composition
• Geographically and temporally distributed creativity
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning in digital music making

Current research

My current practice-based research in contemporary composition seeks to generate new knowledge on how to approach making music that accounts for the space in which it is performed. Spatial music – that is, music that uses human perception of sound localisation as a compositional parameter – has a modest but long history dating back to at least biblical times (call and response prayers, for example). More recently, acousmatic and electro-acoustic practice has seen an increased interest in spatial music via multi-channel electronic diffusion. 

The problem remains, however, that music for live performance practices still largely ignores space as a compositional parameter. My research asks how can we develop a language of music-in-space/space-in-music with the same sophistication as (for example) harmonic or rhythmic vocabularies? What new forms could result when we foreground sound-in-space as a key compositional parameter? What new kinds of skills are needed from performers and composers when engaging in this kind of music-making practice? What are the aesthetic and emotional experiences of sound and music in space? And what are the choreographic implications of spatialising sound in live performance?

My interest and expertise in this area stems from two decades of studio-based practice in which the manipulation of (perceived) space is a primary concern, and over three decades of collaborative practice in theatrical contexts in which sound and physical movement in space are also central. As such, this ongoing interdisciplinary research draws on scholarship from a range of fields, including acoustics, affective aesthetics, and aural architecture, as well as theatre-, choreography- and studio-based creative practices. 

Dr Drew Crawford is an Associate Professor in Music at the University of Southampton and currently serves as the Department's Director of Programmes and Undergraduate Programme Lead. 

I am a composer, producer, sound designer and songwriter with work spanning studio recordings (pop, jazz and EDM genres, film, television, radio and video game soundtracks) and live performances (opera, theatre, dance, cabaret, the concert hall and large-scale corporate events) as well as installation & sound design projects. I love collaboration and being able to work across a broad range of compositional activities, from global projects to intimate commissions, in both commercial and more “art” oriented contexts and feel that each stream of work feeds the others.

I am passionate about teaching creative contemporary music-making and, having taught techniques from digital sound design to 18th century counterpoint, I care deeply about teasing out connections between seemingly unconnected subjects to find the DNA that links them to each other, as well as to students’ own musical experiences.

In 2024-5 I am teaching on The Producer as Composer and Commerical Composition.

I studied composition at the University of Sydney with Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards and Anne Boyd. At the Australian Institute of Music I taught Composition and Music Production and was involved in course design as well as delivery at both Undergraduate and Graduate levels before relocating to the UK in 2016, where I taught as a Visiting Lecturer at City, University of London and as a Teaching Fellow here at the University of Southampton.