As a researcher, I have published on queer composition practice, significant women composers of experimental and new music, Australian composition and digital music notation. I completed my PhD in Music Composition in 2025 with the title 'Knots that Bind: A Queer Exploration of Censorship and Silence through Experimental Opera.'

Academic publications

Robertson J. 2025. Queernotation: A proposal for experimental composition.Organised Sound 30(3): 367-374. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1355771825100861

Robertson J. 2026. Expressing the Inexpressible in Australian Opera: Cat Hope’s Speechless and Kate Neal’s Permission to Speak. In eds. J Crotty and S Robinson, Raising her Voice: Operas by Australian Women. Melbourne: Lyrebird Press.

Robertson J, Moroz S, Hope C, et al. 2024. Transforming Practice with Digital Scores: Developments and Challenges in a Transcontinental Residency. Tempo 78(309): 37–48. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0040298224000044

Gifford, H and Robertson, J. A Brain that Keeps Working: an Interview with Helen Gifford. Context 45: 75–85. 2019 and ed. Madeleine Roycroft Take Note: Interviews with Australian Composers. Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2021.

Robertson J. 2022. Beyond Exploitation: Feminist Satire in Jennifer Walshe’s XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!! In eds. L Kouvaras, M Grenfell and N Williams, A Century of Composition by Women: Music Against the Odds. NY: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95557-1_8

Conferences

Robertson, J. 2023.Structuring Censorship in Digital Scores. TENOR: International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation, Northeastern University Boston 2023. [Peer reviewed conference paper]

J Robertson. 2022. ‘Censorship in the Medium of Online Performance’, Mediating Performance: Technologies, Communities, Spaces. University of Malta.

J Robertson. 2017. ‘Gag on This: Feminist Satire in Jennifer Walshe’s XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!!’ Women in the Creative Arts. Australian National University Canberra.

J Robertson. 2024. Solo improvised synthesizer performance, Australian Jazz & Improvisation Research Network, Monash University 2024. Invited performance.

J Robertson. 2024. Rosenhöhe [interactive electronic composition for double bass and theremin], TENOR: International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation, Zurich University of the Arts.

Reviews and other writing

Robertson J. Emily Wilbourne. Lesbian/Opera: Elena Kats-Chernin’s Iphis and Matricide: The Musical [Book review]. Context 49: 77–79. 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46580/cx90699

Robertson J, Sobek C and Svoboda H. May 2024. TENOR 2024: A Creative Future for Music Notation. Resonate Magazine.