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.
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.
Titless Wonders
Incidental music for a documentary
Directed by Gaylene Preston
About the documentary
Gaylene Preston calls this documentary ‘an upfront exploration of the emotional discoveries of women with breast cancer’. Jan Bolwell’s dance piece, which is at the centre of the documentary was choreographed to Georg Pedersen’s recording of my work, The Journey of Matuku Moana.
Watch excerpts from the documentary.
… the improbable ordered dance …
For full orchestra
I wrote … the improbable ordered dance … in 2000 for the Auckland Philharmonia, when I was composer-in-residence with the orchestra. They gave the first performance conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya in the Auckland Town Hall on 31 May 2001.
About the work
The title comes from a fascinating essay entitled ‘The Music of this Sphere’ in Dr Lewis Thomas’s The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher.
Thomas believes that the urge to make music is as much a characteristic of biology as our other fundamental functions, and wonders what we might hear if we could experience the whole range of sound, most of which is inaudible to us, created by most living things. Thomas believes that the rhythmic sounds might be the recapitulation of something else — an earliest memory, a score for the transformation of inanimate random matter in chaos into the improbable ordered dance of living forms.
The piece grows from a quiet beginning, introducing first a cor anglais melody, contained within a close range, then a wider-ranging cello melody. A section suggesting birdsong leads into a chorale, and these ideas evolve and develop around the central energetic dance-like section before the piece moves back to silence.
Instrumentation
… the improbable ordered dance … is scored for 3334; 4331; harp, piano, timpani, 3 percussion and strings.
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
… the improbable ordered dance … — SOUNZ
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has released this work on CD.
Listen to and watch the Auckland Philharmonia’s 2016 performance.
… the improbable ordered dance … — video
RNZ Concert recorded an NZSO performance in 2006.
… the improbable ordered dance … — audio
Kenneth Young recorded an introduction to the work for RNZ Concert.
… the improbable ordered dance ..: introduction — talk
Award
… the improbable ordered dance … won the 2001 SOUNZ Contemporary Award.
Ngā haerenga
For 2 sopranos, 2 altos, percussion and male narrator
Various texts including Bill Manhire, Ernest Shackleton and the composer
Ngā haerenga was commissioned with financial assistance from the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council by Voiceworks. They gave the first performance in 2000 conducted by Francis Greep with Daryl Pratt (percussion) and John Pringle (narrator).
About the work
Ngā haerenga, which translates from Māori as ‘journeys’ tells stories about mythical, legendary, allegorical and actual journeys.
Part I
The piece opens with a soundscape evoking central Australia. Across the sand and rock by day and night, through heat and cold, Kuniya, the Woma python, is travelling to Uluru where she will lay her eggs. Her timeless journey spans the piece.
Part II
The second section needs some background. By perhaps 6,000 BC, because of huge glacial melting in Baffin Bay and elsewhere, the sea level had risen 120 metres over roughly 4 millennia — this is reflected in the descriptions of flooding in the creation myths of most civilisations. A tribe then living on coastal lowlands, now underwater on the Sunda shelf in Indonesia, took their language, knowledge, traditions and artifacts with them as they and their descendants moved continually to higher ground to escape the rising water, and over time spread through Asia, Europe the Pacific and America, where traces of their culture survive.
In the second section this story is briefly told and a prophetess warns her followers of the impending inundation as the water levels rise. After a continuation of the story of Kuniya, we hear in Māori the song of Kupe the legendary discoverer of Aotearoa New Zealand. In mid-ocean, Kupe, at the prow of the waka, or canoe, asks for a calm and speedy journey over the waters, travelling with dolphins and flying fish along the paths of the great whales, to the south where the sun, trapped in the net of Maui, stands still.
Parts III to V
Where the sun really seems to stand still is in Antarctica in midsummer. It is December 1914, and Ernest Shackleton is setting off in the Endeavour on his epic journey to cross the icecap. Only the first part of this 3-year series of epic journeys is told here.
The entire journey, which taxed the resources of the expedition to the utmost limit, involved being trapped in ice for 10 months until the ship was crushed by the pressure of the ice. This resulted in a trek across the ice to open water, 2 dangerous journeys in southern seas in open boats and a final march over uncharted highlands and glaciers to reach help. Thanks to Shackleton’s superb leadership, every member of the crew survived.
Over soundscapes evoking the Antarctic, the narrator tells Shackleton’s story in short excerpts from his writings. The singers elaborate the story with excerpts from Shackleton’s diary, with 2 wonderfully evocative poems by Bill Manhire, and with a quotation from Job which Shackleton tore out of his bible and kept with him throughout his ordeal.
Part VI
After the Endeavour is crushed in ice, the piece ends with an allegorical journey of the soul. In this 9th century Latin poem, a swan is flying over the ocean, lamenting his unfortunate state, his exile from dry land, his failing strength, his inability to rise above the level of the water. He calls on Orion to light his way, to sweep away the clouds. As dawn comes, his strength returns and he rejoices and praises God as he reaches dry land.
About the text
Apart from the 9th century allegory and the 2 Manhire poems, I devised the text. The background information for the second section comes from Eden in the East by Stephen Oppenheimer and Ernest Shackleton’s South was the main source for his story. The Bill Manhire poems come from what to call your child, published by Random House New Zealand in 1999.
Scoring
This work is scored for solo singers, but could be sung by a choir.
Score and recording
Contact me if you are interested in seeing the score.
Listen and watch online to videos from a 2013 performance.