Ihlara McIndoe said it was "pretty surreal" to win the Sounz Contemporary Award Te Tohu Auaha at the Apra Silver Scrolls on Wednesday.
"It’s pretty cool to be part of that and to be nominated alongside composers I really admire as well," she said.
Ms McIndoe has been honing her craft for about 10 years.
She studied music at the University of Otago and is currently a doctoral fellow at Columbia University in New York.
"I’m really interested in creativity as a means of exploration, learning and listening."
Being curious and surrounding herself with other composers helped her develop her style, she said.
She enjoyed working with different types of instruments and people, and was interested in exploring the connection between live sound and electronics.
She won the award for her composition, of coral and foam.
It is a piece for string quartet and voice and she had worked with a New York City-based quartet The Rhythm Message.
"In addition to being fantastic string players, they’re all also vocalists."
Ms McIndoe
was mentored at Otago University by composers and academics Anthony Ritchie and Peter Adams, and ran
the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra’s academy children’s orchestra.
Marlon Williams won the coveted Apra Silver Scroll Award for his song Aua Atu Rā.
