Drew Crawford

Dr Drew Crawford is an Associate Professor in Music at the University of Southampton, where he serves as the Department's Director of Programmes and Undergraduate Programme Lead. His academic career spans both teaching and creative practice in music composition and production.

His research interests include:

• 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

Crawford's current research focuses on spatial music - music that uses human perception of sound localization as a compositional parameter. With a background spanning two decades of studio-based practice and over three decades of collaborative work in theatrical contexts, his research draws from acoustics, affective aesthetics, aural architecture, and various creative practices. He explores how to develop a sophisticated language of music-in-space/space-in-music, examining what new forms could emerge when sound-in-space is foregrounded as a key compositional element. His work addresses the gap between historical spatial music practices and contemporary live performance where space is often ignored as a compositional parameter.

His creative works demonstrate extensive exploration of spatial audio concepts and intermedial composition, ranging from immersive sound installations to reinterpretations of classical works and experimental performance pieces. These outputs reflect his investigation into how sound localization can be systematically integrated into musical composition with the same sophistication as harmonic or rhythmic elements.

Dr Crawford is accepting PhD students and currently supervises Timothy Cape who is pursuing a PhD in Music. He is passionate about teaching creative contemporary music-making, having taught techniques from digital sound design to 18th century counterpoint. In the 2024-25 academic year, he teaches 'The Producer as Composer,' 'Commercial Composition,' and the first-year undergraduate module 'The Learning Curve.' His educational philosophy emphasizes finding connections between seemingly disparate musical concepts to help students discover underlying principles that link different musical approaches.

His professional background includes composition studies at the University of Sydney with Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, and Anne Boyd. Prior to joining the University of Southampton, he taught at the Australian Institute of Music and served as a Visiting Lecturer at City, University of London. His career bridges commercial and artistic contexts, with work spanning studio recordings across multiple genres, film and television soundtracks, and live performances in diverse settings from opera to corporate events.