Writing Musical Lives
Join us for a talk on writing about the lives of musicians and composers.
Seminar Series: “How to write about a life: current (auto)biography and memoir in Aotearoa New Zealand”
Presenter: Norman Meehan
Writing the biography of someone still living raises hard questions. How do you approach a subject and ask permission to tell their story? How much should interviews shape the finished work—and given how unreliable memory is, how much can you trust them anyway? Facts can be verified. Personality can’t. So how do you balance the two? In this talk, Norman Meehan draws on his experience writing the lives of musicians and composers—including Jenny McLeod, Mike Nock, Bob Moses and Paul Bley – to share what he's learned.
Norman Meehan, a musician and composer himself, writes biographies and edits volumes on the work and lives of jazz musicians and art music composers. His most recent biography, Jenny McLeod: A Life in Music, was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2023.