Samantha Owens FAHA is a music historian based in Karori, Wellington. She has published widely on the performance cultures and practices of both early modern Europe, 1660–1760, and Australasia, 1850–1950. Her monograph, The Well-Travelled Musician: John Sigismond Cousser and Musical Exchange in Baroque Europe (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2017), was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project research grant (2013–2015).

Her other book-length publications include Johann Sigismund Kusser, Serenatas for Dublin (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2020); J. S. Bach in Australia: Studies in Reception and Performance, with Denis Collins and Kerry Murphy (Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2018); Searches for Tradition: Essays on New Zealand Music, Past & Present, with Michael Brown (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2017); Music at German Courts, 1715–1760: Changing Artistic Priorities, with Barbara M. Reul and Janice B. Stockigt (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2011; paperback, 2015); and Johann Sigismund Kusser, Adonis (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2009).

Currently an Honorary Professor of Music at the University of Queensland, she has also held visiting fellowships at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany (2004); Clare Hall, University of Cambridge (2007–2008); and, as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow (Bonn), at the Institut für Musik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (2009–2010) and the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig, Germany (2018).

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