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.
Postcards from Harwood
Settings of 5 haiku for voice and piano
Texts by the Otago Peninsula Writing Group
Postcards from Harwood was written to celebrate my friend and colleague, John Elmsly’s 50th birthday and is dedicated to him.
The first performance was given by Glenese Blake (soprano) and Richard Liu (piano) on 28 July 28 2002 in a Karlheinz concert in the Music Theatre at the University of Auckland.
About the work
The piece sets 5 haiku — all evocations of aspects of the Otago peninsula — written by members of the Otago Peninsula Writing Group: Kay Sinclair (1 and 4), Joyce Whitehead (2) and the composer (3 and 5).
Score
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Alice
Monodrama for mezzo-soprano and full orchestra
Text: Fleur Adcock
Alice was written as part of my residency with the Auckland Philharmonia in 2001. The first performance was given in July 2003 by the Auckland Philharmonia conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya with Helen Medlyn (mezzo-soprano).
About the work
Alice is 8 sections which often merge into one another.
- In a letter to her father, Alice describes shipboard life.
- In New Zealand, she compares her past life and hopes for the future.
- A dialogue between father and daughter, expressed through their letters.
- In Makarora, Alice discovers she is pregnant.
- Alice hears of her father’s death.
- In England, she learns of her husband’s death.
- Back in Makarora, Alice is turned away by her sisters-in-law.
- Turning her back on the South Island, Alice looks forward to her new life with her brother’s family in the north.
My approach
While writing this piece, I was drawn again and again into the thought that, although this is a true story, set in a particular place at a certain time, it has the resonances of a universal myth, known to all of us who live here. Our forebears, or we ourselves, have crossed the seas to begin a new life, with unforeseen and unimaginable difficulties and felicities, whether 10 years, a century or a millennium or so ago.
The music of Alice is text-driven, ranging between a language at times extremely simple, as was the basic musical language of the settlers, and at times quite complex, evoking a storm at sea, or the unease of the settlers in a new environment, or Alice’s reaction to the problems which beset her. The piece is held together by various referential motifs. The initial idea, which perhaps suggests the instability of the sea, is also present in the bell-like sounds marking Charles’ death, music associated with a storm at sea is later associated with mental stress, while music suggestive of the movement of shipboard lice later underlies Alice’s traumatic encounter with her sisters-in-law.
Instrumentation
Alice is scored for: 3*34*3*; 3310; harp, timpani, 3 percussion, strings and mezzo-soprano.
About Alice Adcock
Fleur Adcock writes: ‘In 1909 Alice Adcock, a lively and adventurous young woman from Manchester, was on her way to New Zealand. She was 23, and had recently developed TB, for which there was then no cure. Somehow she persuaded her widowed father to let her travel alone to the other side of the world in case a healthy climate would save her life. (It worked – she lived for another 50 years). The family kept her entertaining letter describing shipboard life, and a few postcards from her have also survived, but most of what we know about her time in New Zealand comes from her father’s letters to her, of which he kept copies, or from family tradition.
On her arrival in New Zealand, Alice went into service, travelling widely, much to the consternation of her father. As housekeeper (and the only woman) on a farm in Makarora (a remote settlement on Lake Wanaka) she became pregnant to an unknown man, but was “rescued” by marriage to a local farmer, Charles Pipson, shortly before the birth of her daughter. In 1911, her beloved father died; in 1912, Alice and Charles had a son and the following year, pregnant again, Alice took her children back to England to visit her family.
Tragically, while she was away, her husband died suddenly of typhoid fever. Alice hurried back to Makarora to claim her inheritance, but left the 2 babies with her brother Sam and his wife (who were shortly to emigrate to New Zealand) and took only her eldest child, the illegitimate one, with her. This outraged her sisters-in-law, who saw it as an insult to their dead brother; they sent her away from the farm empty-handed. Once again she had to take a housekeeping job, this time in the North Island. In 1914, Alice and her brother’s family met up again, and Alice began a new life.’
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the full score and CD from SOUNZ.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has released a recording of Alice.
RNZ Concert recorded the Auckland Philharmonia’s premiere performance in 2003.
Award
Alice won the 2003 SOUNZ Contemporary Award.
Tom’s Serenade for Ann Morris
For oboe, violin, viola and cello
At an Auckland Philharmonia fund-raising auction in 2000, one of the orchestra’s most generous sponsors, Dr Tom Morris, bid a substantial sum for a short ensemble piece to be written by the composer-in-residence.
Dr Morris chose the instruments and title. The world premiere was given in November 2001 at the orchestra’s 21st birthday celebrations by the Ensemble Philharmonia in the Auckland Town Hall, where it was played as a surprise for Ann Morris, whose birthday it also was.
About the work
Serenade for Ann Morris spans 4 sections in one movement, of which the second is for strings alone, and the third is an oboe cadenza.
Score and recordings
Buy or borrow the score and parts from SOUNZ.
Tom’s Serenade for Ann Morris — SOUNZ
A recording, released by Rattle CDs, can be bought from SOUNZ and all good record stores.
A recording was also released on a SOUNZfine promotional CD.
Bright silence
For violin
Bright silence was the competition piece for the inaugural Michael Hill International Violin Competition (MHIVC) in June 2001, held in Queenstown where it was played by 18 very different violinists. The competition was won by Joseph Lin.
About the work
I wrote Bright Silence while I was composer-in-residence with the Auckland Philharmonia. It is dedicated to Michael Hill.
The piece is an evocation of Central Otago, the high plateau between the Southern Alps and the coastal plains in the South Island of New Zealand. The area is treeless, rocky, sparsely populated, sometimes snow-covered, and the piece reflects the sounds, silences and ghosts of the area.
Scores and recordings
Bright Silence was published by Waiteata Music Press in 2001.
Joseph Lin’s performance was released on CD by Waiteata Music Press.
SOUNZ also has a CD you can borrow with performances by 5 different violinists at the 2001 Michael Hill Competition.
Interview
I was interviewed for an RNZ Concert series about the commissioned works in the Michael Hill competition.
MHIVC Commissions: Gillian Whitehead – Bright Silence — interview
Hineputehue
For string quartet and taonga pūoro
Hineputehue was commissioned by Wellington International Festival for the New Zealand String Quartet and Richard Nunns (taonga pūoro). It was first performed by them at the Illott Concert Chamber on 14 March 2002.
About the work
Hineputehue translates literally as the woman of the sound of the gourd — she is the Māori goddess of peace. The work was written in 2001, at the time of President Bush’s State of the Union address shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan, and suggests the fragility rather than the celebration of peace, particularly in a pre-European environment.
A number of instruments used in Hineputehue are made of gourds — the gourd, which carried food and water, is a symbol of peace.
There is a similarity between the stringed instruments of the quartet and the gourds, in that they are made from plant material, with sound emitted through sound holes. Another link is the ku, the only stringed instrument known to Maori, which is a small musical bow played like a jaws harp (jews harp) using the mouth as a resonating chamber. The idea of ororuarangi, which can be translated as ‘spirit voice’ (or double stopping in a different context) has had some influence on this piece as in the parallel movement of the strings.
Instrumentation
The taonga pūoro part is improvised using:
- the poi awiowhio, a very quiet bird lure which is swung around the head
- the tiny kōauau ponga ihu or noseflute which ends the piece
- the hue puru hau, a large gourd which is blown across its top opening
- the gourd rattles played by the quartet, and
- 2 other wind instruments frequently made from gourds, the nguru and the ororuarangi.
Other instruments are the pūtātara or conch shell trumpet, traditionally used for signalling, the pu kaea or war trumpet, a nguru niho paraoa or flute made from a whale’s tooth, the pumotomoto, associated with birth, and tumutumu (tapped percussion).
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
The New Zealand String Quartet and Richard Nunns have recorded this work.
Nau mai e te ao marama
For voice with optional kōauau
Text by Tungia Baker
The first performance was given by Ramonda Te Maiharoa Taleni (voice) with Richard Nunns (kōauau) outdoors at the Elephant Rocks, Oamaru in January 2002.
About the work
Tungia Baker wrote the text, called Tuhituhi, for a celebration of the story of Waitaha’s prophet Te Maiharoa, who led a hikoi up the Waitaki River. Naumai e te ao marama is a song (or aria) from this work, which Ramonda Te Maiharoa Taleni has made her own. It is sometimes referred to as ‘the Waitaha aria’.
Score and recording
Borrow or buy the score from SOUNZ.
Nau mai e te ao marama — SOUNZ
There are 2 archival CD recordings.