Dr Ruth Lee Martin is a Senior Lecturer in Music, who works across composition, performance and research. Her research interests cover two broad areas: as a Scottish migrant, she is strongly influenced by Scottish folk music and the connection between music and landscape, and she also has an ongoing interest in feminist issues relating to music.

Dr Martin's compositional output is diverse, consisting of works for piano, small and large ensembles, choir and orchestra. Vocal and choral music are becoming an increasing focus of her work. Dr Martin has recently completed a CD of her compositional works, A Vision of Wildfowers, that includes a song cycle setting the poetry of Kevin Hart. This work was commissioned by Halcyon Ensemble, Sydney along with six sacred choral works commissioned by Trinity College Choir, Melbourne with funding from artsACT. She was one of the Australian composers chosen to compose a work for the Encounters: Musical meetings between China and Australia event held in Brisbane in 2010. For this she composed a work for the Song Company, setting poetry by Alan Gould for Cheng-Ho’s Sixth Voyage. She has also been awarded many other major commissions including three commissions from the House of Parliament for music for documentaries and music for their 20th birthday celebrations. These works included A House for a Nation, a film about the House of Representatives and House on the Hill performed at celebrations in the Great Hall, Parliament House, on the 10 May 2008 by the Elektra String Quartet with Phil South on percussion and Mark Atkins on didjeridu under the direction of Romano Crivici. House on the Hill has been used in a documentary about the building of Parliament House, Pride of Place. In 2008, Dr Martin was also awarded the prestigious ArtsACT Creative Arts Fellowship.

One of Dr Martin’s research interests is the music of early Scots Gaelic migrants to Australia. She is currently writing a critical anthology of a collection of Gaelic songs written in Australia from the 1850s onwards with a focus on the connection between music and place in these songs. Dr Martin is also a performer of traditional Scots Gaelic music, a member of touring world-fusion band, Eilean Mòr 'Big Island', and she is undertaking studies in the Scots Gaelic language.

Dr Martin has an ongoing interest in feminist issues relating to music, and also in feminist theory and how this may be applied to musical analyses, (this focus formed the basis for her PhD 'The Dark Corner' 2001). She is especially interested in the work of French Feminist Hélène Cixous and her idea of 'l'ecriture feminine'. Dr Martin has published several articles in this area including a publication recently released in the UK journal Music, Sound and the Moving Image, 'Framing Ambiguity and Desire through Musical Means in Sally Potter’s film Orlando’. She has also explored this idea of 'l'ecriture feminine' in her compositions including works 'Five Waves for the Other', 'Spurt!' and 'Rapture of the Deep'.

Dr Martin has been a composer-in-residence, undertaken numerous radio interviews, and written many published articles in journals and books on aspects of Australian contemporary music, traditional Scots Gaelic music and feminism both in Australia and in the UK.

She has been instrumental in developing the ANU's folk and traditional music stream, and has run unique and innovative coursework in conjunction with the National Folk Music Festival, the National Film and Sound Archive, and the National Library of Australia.