About the Lilburn Residence
The former home of composer Douglas Lilburn (ONZ) in Thorndon, Wellington has been offered as a residence for New Zealand composers for over 15 years. The property is administered by the Lilburn Residence Trust, who ensure that the property is used in a manner befitting the legacy of New Zealand’s most important composer of the 20th century. The Trust normally offers use of the house to the composer holding the New Zealand School of Music Composer-in-Residence. If that composer does not require the house, then the Trust calls for applications from other New Zealand composers. Each composer lives in the house, paying a modest rent, for up to a year.
Open Day 2025
The Lilburn House in the Wellington Heritage Festival 2025
Join us at the Lilburn House (22 Ascot St, Thorndon) on the afternoon of Sunday 19 October 1-4 pm for the annual Open Day. This is a golden opportunity to visit the house and wander around the garden. At 2.30 and 3.30 pm there will be short performances in the Living Room by Penelope Axtens, our current Composer-in-Residence. Penelope will let us hear some of the piano pieces that she has been working on.
Our Open Day can be incorporated into the Thorndon Creative and Historic Cottages walk. A beautiful map (created by Lilburn Residence Trust trustee, Chris Cochran) will guide you from the Randell Cottage Annual Open Day to the Lilburn House and from there to Sketching in the Rita Angus garden. Copies of the map will be available at each of the cottages.
Our current Composer-in-Residence
Penelope Axtens took up residence in March 2025. Axtens is a New Zealand-born composer with a distinguished international career, studied in Auckland and Wellington before gaining recognition with the NZSO and RNZ Concert's Music 2000 Prize. After years working in London and Berlin, including a senior role at Sony Classical, she returned to Aotearoa in 2024 and has recently produced new works for cello, harp, and piano, including commissions by international performers.
The nine-month residency offers Axtens a chance to reconnect with Aotearoa's music community while living and composing at the residence. As Axten writes: "I am genuinely thrilled and honoured to be selected Composer-in-Residence for 2025. I am very grateful to Creative New Zealand, the Lilburn Residence Trust and the NZSM for this exceptional opportunity to compose fulltime while living at the celebrated Lilburn Residence. Having recently returned to Aotearoa New Zealand, this residency feels wonderfully timed for me, and I am very much looking forward to creating new music that explores themes of identity and belonging, while reconnecting with the NZSM and creative communities in Wellington."
The Magpie House
SOUNZ The Centre for New Zealand Music has released a podcast series that examines the history and inhabitants of the Lilburn Residence. Titled The Magpie House its host Kirsten Johnstone weaves together the stories that surround the house and its inhabitants into a Forest-Gump-like saga of war and music, cold-war espionage and persecution, the search for identity and a place to call home.
Listen to the four episodes below:
Episode 1: Landfall In Unknown Seas