Dr Rachel Orzech wins 2025 McCredie Musicological Award

Richard Wagner (1813-1883), score Siegfried Idyll (1870).

The music of 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner played a surprising, complex and little-known role in French cultural history and identity in the years surrounding World War II.

Wagner’s musical dramas enjoyed enormous popularity in France in the 1930s as French critics and the public rejected Germany’s claim to exclusive ownership of Wagner’s music, claiming it as a universal music for all.

Orzech examines how, during Germany’s occupation of France in WWII, the censored French press transformed this notion of Wagner as universal into a discourse that supported Nazi collaborationist rhetoric.

Meet Dr Rachel Orzech

Dr Orzech is a classically-trained pianist and musicologist.

In her nuanced interpretation of French music criticism, the 2025 McCredie Musicological Award recipient, Dr Rachel Orzech provides insight into the complexity of Parisian reactions to Wagner’s music during those difficult years. Her work has changed accepted understandings of Wagner’s reception in France, and the way music was perceived as a means to shape national sentiment.

“When people talk, write and think about music, they’re writing about more than music. They’re writing about the world that they’re living in, how they perceive it, and how they may want to influence others to perceive it,” Orzech says.

The McCredie Musicological Award is Australia’s most prestigious prize for the study of music.

A classically-trained pianist, Orzech studied piano in a joint Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Music at the University of Melbourne.

The degree, she says, offered an opportunity to engage across the spectrum of the humanities, included history and language subjects, and introduced her to the discipline of musicology.

“I really had no understanding of what musicology was until I began my degree but as soon as I discovered it, I had a very strong sense of ‘this is where my interests fit’,” Orzech says.

Orzech completed her PhD in 2017, through a cotutelle (or joint) program at the University of Melbourne and the University of Rouen (France). The joint program provided the opportunity for deep research into pre-WWII and Occupation-era France, and to engage with French research institutions and begin to build an international reputation among musicologists.

Wagner, politics & music

Orzech’s PhD was later adapted into the critically acclaimed 2022 monograph, Claiming Wagner for France: Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-1943, published by the University of Rochester Press. The book received support via an Australian Academy of the Humanities Publication Subsidy in 2020.

Australian music publisher and patron of the arts Louise Hanson-Dyer (1884-1962) photographed by Spencer Shier (1884-1950). Source: Wikipedia.

In late 2024, Orzech convened an international conference on the theme of her current interest, Musical Nationbuilding and Cultural Exchange in Interwar France and Australia at the University of Melbourne. Here, Orzech foregrounded her research on the work of Louise Hanson-Dyer and the cultural impacts of her music, featured in Orzech’s contribution to Pursuit of The New: Louise Hanson-Dyer, Publisher and Collector (2023: Lyrebird Press).

Orzech received a Humanities Travelling Fellowship in 2024 to travel to France to research a failed attempt in 1933 to establish an annual festival of French music, organised in part by Hanson-Dyer and with a focus on the role of musical internationalism in the nation building process.

This failed festival proposal, Orzech says, ”raises questions around the discourse on French identity in musical circles, and the way that France conceived of its musical past and future.”

“There’s a cliché about music being a universal language, but it has some truth to it. We see, even today, how music brings people together, but is also used by groups to separate themselves from one another, make arguments, shape narratives and communicate who they are and what they believe in.”

Orzech is currently editing special issues for both the Journal of Musicological Research and Musicology Australia.

Music for the ages

“The humanities expand the mind, and challenge our thinking, helping us to consider what is right, or wrong, and why. Commentary on music is about much more than just music — it’s a vehicle of social commentary.”

The honour comes at an important time in Orzech’s career.

“I’m grateful to receive this award. I really admire the work of the past recipients, and to be considered among them is a huge acknowledgement of my work,” Orzech says.“At a time when we really have to fight for the value of the humanities, and why it’s important to do this research, in musicology in particular, it means a lot to be acknowledged by the Academy.”

Academy President Professor Professor Stephen Garton AM FAHA FRAHS FASSA FRSN commended Orzech on receiving the 2025 McCredie Musicological Award.

“Dr Orzech’s exemplary research shines a light on the musical, social and political lives of French citizens before and during the years of Nazi occupation. Orzech is an exemplary young scholar whose work exemplifies the critical importance of the humanities in understanding the complex world we live in.”

Her work has earned international recognition, and her scholarly leadership—including in the organization of three international symposiums and her editorial involvement with leading journals—demonstrates remarkable breadth and vision. In a relatively short time, Orzech has made a significant contribution to the field of musicology, and the Academy is delighted to honour her achievements.”

Dr Orzech will receive the award at the Annual Academy Dinner in Sydney on Thursday 13 November 2025.

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