Melissa Cross
Wellington
I am a freelance historian of English and Irish ancestry, born in Paraparaumu and now living in Island Bay. My training is in musicology, ethnomusicology, colonialism, gender, and film. As a former registered nurse and current part-time medical reference librarian at a tertiary institution, I’m also interested in health, education, equity, and information science. I study te reo Māori, respect the principles of Ti Tiriti o Waitangi, and am guided by Te Ara Tika research methods. My research to date has focused on nineteenth-century socio-cultural and political musical relationships between Māori and Pākehā individuals and communities. Currently, I am combining my background in musicology with my developing interest in local history to research representations of Māori, real and imagined, in Wellington’s nineteenth-century theatres. I enjoy working independently but prefer to collaborate with individuals, families, and communities. I can also help researchers to design search strategies for their literature reviews.
Research and Publications
Cross, M. (2023) Five Lives Represented in the Waiata Collected by Alfred Hill: A Biographical Methodology for the Historiography of Aotearoa New Zealand Musics. PhD thesis. Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. (Victoria Doctoral Scholarship)
Cross, M. (2021). Demons, Cornermen, Prophets and a Pirate King: An Alternative Wellington Music Scene, 1878–1880. Conference paper. New Zealand Historical Association. University of Auckland, online.
Cross, M. (2019). “I Feel I Belong To Them … I Didn’t Feel They Were Any Good”: The Collaborations and Conflicts of Phyllis Williams. Conference paper. Musicological Society of Australia. Monash University, Melbourne.
Cross, M. (2019). Seventy Māori Songs: An Intersection Between Mātauranga Māori and an Australian Archive. Conference paper. New Zealand Musicological Society. University of Auckland, Auckland.
Cross, M. (2017). Alfred Hill’s “Māori” Songs: Whose Tradition? In Searches for Tradition: Essays on New Zealand Music, Past & Present, eds. Michael Brown and Samantha Owens. Wellington: Victoria University Press.
Cross, M. (2015). A Musicologist’s First Experience of Archival Research. Crescendo 97, 6–16.
Cross, M. (2015). The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi’s Last Stand. MMus thesis (Distinction). Victoria University of Wellington; Massey University. (Victoria Graduate Award, NZSM Director’s Postgraduate Scholarship, Ella C. Wilson Music Award)
Cross, M. (2014) “Our Mutual Waiata Interests”: Intersections in the Lives of James Cowan and Alfred Hill. Public talk associated with the exhibition Borderland: The World of James Cowan. Ariana Tikao curator. National Library of New Zealand, Wellington.
