Beyond performance, Nick is deeply involved in academic and practice-based research into the guitar’s role in 21st-century music-making.

His work explores topics such as:

• Extended techniques, notation and interpretation in contemporary guitar repertoires
• Post-tonal conceptions of harmonic organisation
• Intervallic cycles, fuzzy sets and teleological misdirection in modern improvisation
• Cross-disciplinary collaborations between musicians and visual artists

Access published papers.

PhD Thesis

Allan Holdsworth: Principles of Harmonic Organisation in Selected Compositions PhD thesis

Allan Holdsworth PhD context video

MTO Allan Holdsworth: Principles of Harmonic Organisation in Selected Compositions

Masters thesis

Evening the odds : an analysis of methodologies used to generate harmonic rhythm in asymmetrical meters since the 1950s and their subsequent implications for contemporary improvisation

Awards

The Conservatorium Director’s Award for Exceptional Doctoral Research

The University of Melbourne 2022 MCM Thesis title: Allan Holdsworth Principals of Harmonic Organisation in Selected Compositions.

Barbara Bishop Hewitt Scholarship: Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, 2023.

49^th Grammy Awards, Shortlist Nomination, (Nick Freer and Avatar for Best Pop Instrumental Album), 2006

Shortlisted for the Apra Professional Development Awards, (Nick Freer, Composition), 2015-16.

National Art Music Awards: Shortlisted for the Excellence in Experimental Practice, 2023.