Allan Thomas recordings

Allan Thomas (1942-2010) was a Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Music. Thomas taught world music, Pacific Island music and dance, Afro-American music, and New Zealand music. His courses in Ethnomusicology encouraged his students and colleagues to consider music from an indigenous perspective.

Thomas took an interest in Asian music traditions in the early 1970s while studying for a Diploma in Education at Dartington College, Devon, UK. He began to study gamelan at the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam, and in 1973 he undertook fieldwork in Cirebon, West Java. His research and teaching interests also extended to Pacific Islands music, and this resulted, notably, in two books “Songs and Stories of Tokelau - an introduction to the cultural heritage” (co-authored with Ineleo Tuia and Judith Huntsman, Wellington, 1990), “New Song and Dance from the Central Pacific: Creating and performing the Fatele of Tokelau in the islands and in New Zealand” (New York, 1995), and a CD, “Vanuatu: Traditional Music of West Futuna” (Auvidis/UNESCO, 1998).

Thomas passed away in 2010. In 2017 he was posthumously awarded a certificate of appreciation for his services in introducing, promoting and developing gamelan in the New Zealand School of Music’s curriculum at Victoria University of Wellington by the Indonesian government.