
**Hello! I’m currently available for work – composition, writing, hosting, production, sound design, training – or other. Drop me a line.**
My name is Martin Zaltz Austwick. I’m a musician, podcaster, performer, Honorary Senior Lecturer at CASA (UCL); I’ve written, produced, composed and performed for award-winning podcasts including Answer Me This!, The Allusionist, ZigZag, 99% Invisible (live), Song by Song and 20,000Hz. I write music as Pale Bird.
You can contact me on twitter @martinaustwick or email DrAustwick at gmail dot com.
What I’ve been up to lately:
- Researched and produced on two episodes of The Allusionist – The Cake is Mightier Than The Sword (research and engineering for Buenos Aires protest pastries) and Podlingual (editing and production) [Feb-March 2021].
- Taught on a half-day Introduction to Podcasting course for the AHRC, the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council [March 2021]
- Delivered a Music in Podcasting class for Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, CA) [March 2021]
- Wrote the theme song for Charles Adrian and Lisa Findlay’s Romcom Rewrite podcast [March 2021].
- Wrote and recorded a monologue for Adriene Lilly’s WFMU Marathon, a series of Meditations on Money [March 2021].
- Interviewed podcaster Ross Sutherland for their Patreon-only behind the scenes podcast series, Imaginary Reprise.
- Created a pandemic-friendly Christmas song, Don’t Wait For Me Beneath The Mistletoe, with Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman [Xmas 2020].
- Released a music video for Many Moons and an EP of songs written on extended-range guitars called Unwavering Sentinels of Dreaming [Dec 2020].
- Programmed the 2020 Podcast Maker Weekend (with Sarah Myles of Rise and Shine) [Sep 2020].
- 20,000Hz Podcast: I wrote and produced “Deepfake Dallas”, about Audio Deepfakes, as well as contributing music to the episode [September 2020]; and their episode about John Cage’s 4’33” [Jan 2020]. This episode was later adapted by Dallas Taylor for live performance at On Air 2020, and into a Main Stage TED Talk [July 2020].
- Maddie’s Sound Explorers [Aug – Nov 2020] – a science podcast for 7-10 year olds, featuring a song built from the sounds of science and nature every episode. I developed the 15-episode series with host Maddie Moate and exec. producer Matt Hill. I booked and interviewed guests, scripted episodes with Maddie, and edited, produced, mixed and mastered the show, writing and a recording a new piece of music for each episode, based around the sounds and ideas we discover along the way.
- Wrote scores for episodes of The Tranquillusionist, episodes of the show designed to be particularly soothing and calming [Mar-Aug 2020]
- Ran the Podcast Maker Livestreams [Apr-July 2020].
- Judge and mentor on the Pulse Awards – a £50,000 fund led by the Wellcome Trust and the British Podcast Awards. Eleven podcasts were funded, and I supported two makers – Dave Pickering for Down to A Sunless Sea: Memories of My Dad and Sarah Golding’s “Anyone F’Coffee”, a mixed fiction/nonfiction narrative podcast exploring women’s health [Oct 2019-May 2020].
Quick links to:
- Podcasting and Podcast Music
- Singing, songwriting, and performance
- Training, talks and videos
- Data Visualisation
- Read some press
- Get a general bio or photos
I’m a podcaster – I’m one third of Answer Me This!, one of the UK’s most successful independent podcasts (Sony/Aria Silver, 2010 and a Sony/Aria Gold 2011). I also co-created Song by Song (British Podcast Gold Award: Review, 2017), Brain Train, Global Lab, and The Year of The Bird podcasts, and I’ve written for 20,000Hz.
I’ve written and performed music for the above podcasts, and for Zig Zag, The Allusionist, The Beef and Dairy Network, Mortified, the Glamour UK podcast, and many, many others. I’ve written music and performed live with The Allusionist, Radio Diaries, 99% Invisible, The Bugle, Radiotopia Live, and the 3rd Coast International Audio Festival awards ceremony.
I’ve spoken at Audiocraft, Hearsay, Vancouver Podcast Festival, Boring Conference, Geek Showoff, SciBar, Pint of Science and TEDx LSE, in additional to a range of academic conferences from the AAG to SPIE – about everything from Music for Podcasting, to Eggs, to Cycling, to GPS Data, to Medical Laser Physics.
I founded the Podcast Maker Weekend (as part of the London Podcast Festival) in 2017 to create high-quality, affordable sessions for UK podcasters, and currently act as a curator/director. In 2020 I organised a series of livestreams with international audio makers under the auspices of the Maker events.
In my academic life, I was a Senior Lecturer at CASA, at UCL’s Bartlett Faculty (2011-2017). I have a Physics degree and a PhD in Quantum Computing. My recent research covered data visualisation, urban systems, and digital humanities. I have created modules and taught data visualisation, coding, podcasting, and physics, and was Course Director on a Spatial Data Science and Visualisation masters (2013-2017).
I was in public engagement through talks, videos, visualisations, events and podcasts. I won a UCL award for Public Engagement in 2016 and an ESPRC-funded Public Engagement Fellowship in 2015.