2026 BY WHAKATŪ RESIDENCY RECIPIENT

Hannah Curwood's creative practice centres on Hannah in the Wars, her music project spanning post-punk composition, recording and live performance. She studied under Graeme Downes (The Verlaines) at the University of Otago, completing a BMus and PGDipMus in Performance and Composition, before spending five years in Auckland embedding herself in the New Zealand music scene, where she released two albums under her own name, Hannah Curwood, and worked as a guest vocalist alongside artists including Shayne Carter, Jen Cloher, and Paul McLaney. She then moved to London for around a decade, writing, recording, and performing internationally, including at Glastonbury and Edinburgh Fringe. 
 
Her debut album as Hannah in the Wars was produced by Roger O'Donnell of The Cure and released on his label 99X/10, earning a Bandcamp Album of the Day feature. Reviewers described the songwriting as elegant and tightly constructed, praised the production as accomplished, and picked out her voice specifically, calling it sincere, pure, and instantly distinctive, with comparisons to PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Anna Calvi, and Sharon Van Etten. Live, that same intensity carries through, with reviewers noting a magnetic stage presence that pulls audiences in and holds them there. 
 
Underlying all of this is a real interest in the human need to sing. Hannah works somatically with singers of all levels, helping people access something more evolutionary and instinctive than technical performance, the basic, embodied pleasure of making and sharing music. She brings that same openness into her own live shows, involving audiences closely rather than performing at a distance. 
 
Covid and becoming a mother brought a real pause to her recording and touring, but she's back, writing and recording a new album with her full band. The first single, Dirty Light, is coming soon, with a 16mm music video in production, directed by Sarah Burton.