Austin Haynes

I am currently translating all of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets into te reo Māori. Check out some of my work here: https://austinhaynes.me/translations

I am a classical countertenor. I tend to specialise in 17th and 18th Century European music though am passionate about other répertoires including 20th C Māori music from Aotearoa/New Zealand as well as 19th C art song. My practice as a performer is enriched further by my work in academia, where I focus on both early modern music culture in England and textual/musical cultures in post-colonisation Aotearoa/New Zealand.

I am a PhD Candidate at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington, studying the history of te reo Māori translations of English literary and song texts. I am focussing on works of translation completed between c. 1880 - 1940, looking particularly to literary tūpuna such as Rēweti Kōhere, Pei Te Hurinui Jones, Henare Te Whaiti, and Erima Maewa Kaihau. I am seeking to understand the ways that Māori readers read European literatures and how translation allowed readers to repurpose foreign texts for novel uses. I focus particularly on translations of Shakespeare, love lyric, pao-type texts, and popular songs.

I am studying a PhD at Te Herenga Waka, looking at the history of translation of literary and song texts between te reo Māori and te reo Pākehā. I am supported in this work by a Wellington Doctoral Scholarship.

Following my BA, I will be studying an MSt in English Literature, 1550-1700 at New College, Oxford.

Throughout my BA I was supported by the Michel Junior Scholarship awarded by the Queen’s College for my first class performance in collections (2020-2022). After my final exams in 2022, I was awarded the Gibbs Prize in English Language and Literature (Best Overall Performance in Course II). My final dissertation, for which I was awarded a first class, was entitled ‘Thomas Shadwell, the Multimedia Spectacular, and the Contagion of Performance’. This dissertation focussed on Thomas Shadwell and Thomas Duffett’s 1670s English operas. I investigate the links between contemporary medical thinking and the emerging opera form, arguing that Shadwell’s and Duffett’s metaphores of disease (from Syphilis to Bubonic plague) can help us better understand Restoration anxieties about music and emotion.

In my final year at MGS I was awarded prizes for English, English Literature, best essay for Classical Studies, the Sir Kingsley Norris Oratory Prize, the Senior Chorister award, the Alliance Française State Oral Prize and the MGS prize for most outstanding all rounder, considering factors like academics, range of extracurricular and the student’s force for good in the wider community. In my time at MGS I was house captain for Miller house, head chorister (2018) of the Chapel Choir, and led the schools Gay-Straight Alliance (now QSA). My debating team won the 2018 DAV state competition as the strongest year 12 debating team.