Music
Search this list of all my publicly available works using the search box, or the category and year lists. Information about each work includes where to buy, borrow or listen to it.
Two Frame songs
For mezzo-soprano, violin and piano
Texts by Janet Frame
I set these 2 poems for performance at Janet Frame’s memorial service in February 2004 in the Dunedin Town Hall. They were sung by Ana Good, with Sandra Crawshaw (violin) and Joyce Whitehead (piano).
About the work
The poems in this work are: ‘The Place’ and ‘When the sun shines more years than fear’.
Scores
The score is available from SOUNZ.
Hinetekakara
Works with taonga pūoro, Voice and instrumental ensemble, Collaborations
For kaikaranga, taonga pūoro and bassoon
Text by Aroha Yates-Smith
The first performance of Hinetekakara was given by Aroha Yates-Smith (kaikaranga), Richard Nunns (taonga pūoro), George Zukerman (bassoon) in Tamatekapua, the marae at Ohinemutu near Rotorua in March 2004.
About the work
Hinetekakara is an ancestress of Aroha Yates-Smith, whose own composition is embedded in mine. The interpretation of her chants is as follows:
- The singer invokes the spirit of her ancestress beside the rippling waters of Lake Rotorua.
- Tuhohomatakaka conducts the tapu-raising ceremony over Ihenga.
- Hinetekakara, participating in the ceremony, meets Ihenga and they fall in love.
- Hinetekakara’s lullaby welcoming her new-born son, Tuariki.
- Ihenga discovers the murdered body of Hinetekakara at the lake.
- The singer farewells her ancestress.
There are 3 other versions of this work, although this was the original.
Hinetekakara for kaikaranga, taonga pūoro and flutes
Hinetekakara for kaikaranga, taonga pūoro and ensemble
Hinetekakara for kaikaranga, taonga pūoro, flute, alto flute, and bassoon
About Hinetekakara
Many years ago, Hinetekakara lived with her husband (or father, according to some traditions) Ihenga on the edge of Lake Rotorua. Returning from a hunting trip, Ihenga discovered the body of his beloved Hinetekakara by the lake, murdered, and sang his mournful lament. The settlement at Ohinemutu is named for her (meaning ‘the end of the woman’).
Instrumentation
The taonga pūoro played in this piece are, in order:
- pūtatara — conch shell trumpet
- pūtōrino matai — wooden pūtorino
- pūmotomoto — shakuhachi-like wooden flute
- pūpūharakeke — flax snail
- pūkaea — war trumpet, and
- nguru rākau maire — wooden nose flute.
Score
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Te mauri o te awa
For two women’s voices
Text by the composer
The first performance, by Ana Good and Ramonda Te Maiharoa Taleni, was in the middle of the bridge over the Waitaki, on State Highway 1, on Waitangi Day (6 February) 2004 at a festival celebrating the river and the Waitaha people of the area.
About the work
The text of Te mauri o te awa is in te reo Māori and celebrates the Waitaki River in Otago — this work is sometimes called Waitaki.
It describes the journey of the river from the first drop of rain, the first flurry of snow high in the Southern Alps to the dissipating of the force of the river in te moana-nui-a-kiwa, the Pacific Ocean.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
An archival performance on CD was released in 2004.
Quintet
For oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano
Quintet was commissioned by Chamber Music New Zealand, with funding from Creative New Zealand, for the Brisbane-based Southern Cross Soloists. They gave the first performance as part of a national tour at the Regent on Broadway in Palmerston North on 10 July 2003.
About the work
Because of the limitations of range of the instruments (only the piano has extremes of range), their different tuning systems and the fact that only the clarinet among the wind instruments has possibilities of extended techniques, this piece explores more ‘classical’ ideas than some of the other pieces I wrote around this time.
Quintet is in a single movement with several sections. The work uses a set of 6 notes as its basic idea: sounded together they have a restless quality, but the structure of the set provides both diversity and connection between the sound worlds of the piece.
At the outset, a variety of ideas and textures are presented, not unlike moment form, but not using the extremities of 20th century moment form. A second section, over a piano pedal, initiates an exchange between the bassoon and other instruments. This leads to a rapid scherzo-like section, with a monodic trio. It is closely followed by a slow movement, based on a close-range melody that is a tribute to Hirini Melbourne, who died during the writing of this section. The oboe cadenza which follows is the structural centre of the quartet, and is followed by a reworking in reverse of the material already presented. The ending leaves the piece unresolved.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Quintet was recorded as part of SOUNZ’s Resound project.
Arapātiki
A landscape prelude for piano
Arapātiki was commissioned by Stephen De Pledge with funding from Creative New Zealand. It is one of 12 landscape preludes by New Zealand composers that he commissioned and premiered at the New Zealand Festival in 2008.
About the work
Arapātiki translates as ‘the path of the flounder’ and is the old name of the sandflats in front of my house at Harwood, on the Otago Peninsula.
The piece has to do with the advance and retreat of the tide across the flats, where many species of sea and water birds spend much of their day — an ever-varying waterscape. The opening flourish is based on the sound of the korimako or bellbird.
Kenneth Young recorded an introduction to all the landscape preludes for SOUNZ’s Resound project.
Landscape Preludes: introduction — RNZ
Stephen de Pledge talks about the project to SOUNZ.
The Landscape Preludes — Youtube
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score and CDs from SOUNZ.
Arapātiki has been released on 3 CDs, each recording by a different pianist.
Hear and watch Stephen de Pledge give the premiere of the work in 2008.
Potiki’s memory of stone
Incidental music for taonga pūoro
Play by Briar Grace-Smith
The first performance of Potiki’s memory of stone was given at the Court Theatre in Christchurch in July 2003. The incidental music uses taonga pūoro played by Richard Nunns and realised by Steve Garden.
About the work
Briar Grace’s play is about a young greenstone carver, Potiki who knows there is a dark secret surrounding his childhood. On the South Island’s west coast, 2 Māori carvers, Tam and Manaaki, went searching for a sacred greenstone boulder 20 years previously. They took Potiki, Manaaki’s little son with them. Something terrible happened that day to wreak havoc on all involved. To uncover the truth behind this greenstone trail Potiki must piece together a series of memories.
Get the manuscript
Playmarket provides information about the play and performance rights.