Esther Marie Pauw is an affiliate of Africa Open Institute where she undertakes artistic research, sonic improvising, classical flute performance, curatorial projects, and flute coaching. Current research includes performances that focus on sonic architecture, experiments with learning through improvisation, and includes historical research into materialities of music instruments such as her great-grandmother’s harmonium. Together with the Africa Open Institute’s improvising collective, she publishes music-making on online platforms (https://soundcloud.com/user-610733588), explores projects such as 1) improvising with a NAO robot, 2) sonic luminescence ‘with’ Krotoa, and 3) pluri-sonotopic collaborations that include creative work with improvising collectives such as AMM All-Stars (London) and Sono-choreographic trio (Berlin). She curates the Tamássy-Pauw public library, possibly the largest collection of flute-related sheet music in Africa. She coaches classical flute and music improvisation at Pieter Okkers House, the home of Africa Open Institute. 

Esther Marie has published accredited articles in Acta Academica, LitNet Akademies, Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa, South African Music Studies, and Perspectives of New Music. She has published creative work on artistic platforms such as herri, Ellipses, NewMusicSA Bulletin and Oxford Artistic Research. Greg de Cuir’s online film festival (https://mediacityfilmfestival.com/dark-dark-gallery/) portrayed her 24 improvisations with Garth Erasmus and inspired subsequent Xnau Improvising projects including a residency at STIAS, music-making workshops at Zeitz MOCAA, and publication of the Blavet-Varèse project. CD publications include performances of contemporary flute duos with Barbara Highton Williams, Fofa le nna (2012, online, forthcoming), and flute solos by Justinian Tamusuza and Michael Blake on Too Late for the Prayers (AOI, 2021, online). She has played with chamber musicians, poets, and artists that have commissioned and premièred South African compositions locally and internationally and performed on national festivals such as the National Arts Festival (Grahamstown, 2006), Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (2007), Klein Karoo Klassique (2012) and Woordfees (Stellenbosch 2005-2024). Films by Aryan Kaganof (African Noise Foundation) that document flute-based interventions include Threnody for the Victims of Marikana (2014), Kreun (2015), Khoisan ghost kreun (2016), Nege fragmente uit ses khoi’npsalms (2018), Invocation (2020), Smeekbede (2020) and Slave Bell Quintet (2023). 

Esther Marie has a diploma in secondary cycle Music and English teaching (1992), holds the degrees BMus, BMus(Hons) and MMus (cum laude, Stellenbosch University) and has received licentiates in flute teaching (UTLM, UNISA, 1991) and flute performance (UPLM, UNISA, 1991). Her PhD in practice-based research (Stellenbosch University) focused on decolonial praxes of curating classical concert spaces amidst shifting perspectives of geo-politics of land, landscape, space, and migration of practices. She is a recipient of a 2020 Stellenbosch University Top Twenty Postdoctoral Award for Excellence in Research.