Brian teaches courses in critical approaches to ethnomusicology, global music, about music in performance events, film, and popular culture, and with a focus on the Asia Pacific region and Aotearoa. Brian supervises postgraduate research projects in ethnomusicology, ethnography, Pacific, Māori, and Indigenous musics, and in related areas.

Current Postgraduate supervision:

Living Heritage in Practice: Improving Museum Collecting, Presenting, and Safeguarding of Indigenous Intangible Cultural Heritage (PhD)

Liberating the Instrument: Reimagining Western Art Music Pedagogy in Aotearoa through Cultural Reconnection and Collectivist Practice (MMus)

Music in the Central Soviet Area of China, 1929–1934 (PhD)

Exploring the Role of Pipa in Transcultural Communication in New Zealand and Global Contexts (PhD)

New Voices of Humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan: Foguangshan, Ciji, and Fagushan as Case Studies (PhD)
Diverse Expression: Chinese Identities in 1921-1931 New Zealand through the Lens of Music  (PhD)

Ethnic Affiliation and Contemporary Transformations in Inner Mongolian Music Culture (PhD)
The Making of Music and Musicians in Modern Samoa (PhD)
Digital Music Technology in the Contemporary Pacific (MMus)

Completed Postgraduate supervision:

Sound Meanings: Acoustic Approaches to Flutes from Aotearoa and the Pacific (PhD)

Trajectories of Tradition: Composers and Cosmopolitanism in Singapore’s Malay Traditional Music Community (PhD)
He Whiringa Muka: The Relationship Between the Whanganui River, Marae and Waiata (PhD)
Analysing the Modern Repertoire for Erhu (MMA)
Crawford, On The Hill, By The Sea (MMus )
(Re)Viewing the Other: Gender Subversions in Indofijian Performances (PhD)
Musika: The Agony of Asking (PhD)
Ngā Waiata Tuku Iho: The Legacy Of Tribal Song Traditions (PhD)
Whanganui Kaiponu: Ngāti Ruakā Methodologies for the Preservation of Hapū Waiata and Oral Taonga (MMus)
Irish Music in Wellington: A Study of a Local Music Community (MMus)
The Clarinet as Extension of the Voice and Expressive Conduit of Musical Styles in Diverse Ensembles (MMus)
Na Suklit: Benny Sokkong and the Bamboo Musical Instruments of the Kalinga (Mmus)
The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand (MMus)
The Acquisition Process of Recognition: Musical Performance in New Zealand (MMus)
Menginpehn Lien Pohnpei: A Poetic Ethnography of Urohs (PhD)
Māori Performing Arts and the Weaving of Local, National and International Communities (MMus)
Outside In: Wellington Jazz Among the Discourses (PhD)
Voices in the Reo: Music, Community and Membership in a Rātana Brass Band (MMus)