In this year's lecture, composer Jenny McLeod considers Douglas Lilburn’s thoughts on tradition and language and shares her own personal reflections, in illustrated verse. Jenny McLeod says: Douglas Lilburn and I were personal friends from 1961. We had a lot in common, and I knew him better than most. First I entered the Victoria University Music Department as one of his students. Through my post-graduate years studying overseas, we corresponded by letter. Later on we became professional colleagues: he requested me to come back and teach at Victoria, which eventually resulted in my appointment there as a junior lecturer. He started the Waiteata Music Press at Victoria and promptly also became my music publisher. A six-year period (from 1971) followed, during which on Freddy Page's retirement, I took over as professor of music and head of department at Vic (and Douglas received his own personal chair). During this period I was technically his boss. Then taking an unusually 'early retirement' myself (aged 35) I resigned and went off on a 'spiritual walkabout' for some years, returning in 1981 to New Zealand, and specifically to Pukerua Bay to live. Since then I have been a freelance composer, and have also grown very close to the Maori people, especially to Ngati Rangi at Ohakune. Jenny McLeod was awarded Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1977, and CANZ KBB Citation for Services to New Zealand Music in 2008. The Lilburn Lecture 2016 was hosted by the Lilburn Trust and the Alexander Turnbull Library, and recorded on 2 November 2016 at National Library of New Zealand by RNZ.

Marking the 100th anniversary of Lilburn's birth, music historian and 2015 Lilburn Research Fellow Chris Bourke discusses the place of local popular music in New Zealand. He notes that when Lilburn was born, the local music scene was more inclusive. How did the split between “high art” and “low art” occur? Has the neglect of New Zealand popular music been rectified? What is the most useful way to study local popular music? Is it still necessary to look for a New Zealand sound? He considers the ideas discussed by Lilburn in his celebrated talk A Search for Tradition and A Search for a Language: are they still relevant, and can they be answered by popular music?

As a writer, editor, critic, educator, broadcaster and composer, Dr William Dart brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to his commentaries on New Zealand music. He’s one of this country’s leading music critics. From 1977 to 2002 he reviewed regularly for the NZ Listener and, since then he’s been the music critic for the New Zealand Herald. In 1988, William Dart founded and edited the important quarterly, Music in New Zealand which he published through until 2002. Dart also broadcasts regularly on Radio New Zealand Concert, including his long-running programme on rock music, New Horizons. The Lilburn Trust and the Alexander Turnbull Library hosted the second annual Lilburn Lecture in the Adam Concert Room at Victoria University, Wellington; on Lilburn's 99th Birthday. In his lecture, entitled Signatures and Footprints, William Dart talks about the complexity of securing identity and individuality in music.

In November 2013, composer, author and critic Dr Philip Norman delivered the inaugural Lilburn Lecture hosted by the Lilburn Trust and the Alexander Turnbull Library. Appropriately, it took place on Douglas Lilburn’s birthday, 2nd November in the Hunter Council Chamber at Victoria University, Wellington. Philip Norman is a Christchurch-based composer, author and critic; he wrote the highly acclaimed first biography of Douglas Lilburn, and in 2013 he was the recipient of the first research fellowship established in Lilburn’s name at the National Library. Entitled Plato’s Cave: Realities of Composing in New Zealand, the lecture also includes a live performance of Norman’s work Plato’s Cave by guest artists Reuben Chin (saxophone), Peter Barber (vlola), Jian Liu (piano).

In this year's Lilburn Lecture Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal tells the story of his journey as a bicultural composer in Aotearoa New Zealand Using examples of his own composition, Charles considers the purpose of composing, the potential impact of concepts such as reo (voice) and kōrero (voiced narrative) as an approach to music and whether mātauranga Māori and Western composition can combine to create a new and satisfying whole. Charles Royal (Marutūahu, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngā Puhi) is a composer, researcher, teacher, musician and passionate advocate for ‘indigenous creativity’. He is highly respected writer and has received several prestigious fellowships. He is Director of Ngā Manu Atarau at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. The Lilburn Lecture 2017 was hosted by the Lilburn Trust and the Alexander Turnbull Library, and recorded on 2 November 2017 at National Library of New Zealand by RNZ.