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.
Napier’s Bones
Arranged for 6 virtuoso percussionists and improvising pianist
The first performance of this arrangement of Napier’s Bones was given by Judy Bailey (piano) and the New Zealand Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Kenneth Young, in the Wellington Town Hall during the 1996 New Zealand Composing Women’s Festival.
About the work
The original version of Napier’s Bones was written in 1989. It is scored for 24 percussionists and improvising pianist.
I wrote this version to involve the improvising talents of pianist, Judy Bailey during the Composing Women’s Festival.
The title has many resonances, but the Napier referred to is Sir John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, and Napier’s bones in Africa were strips of ebony and ivory used for calculating, suggesting to me both rhythmic complexity and the layout of a keyboard.
The piano part is almost entirely improvised, although the pianist is given basic material to work with. There are various forms of interaction with the ensemble for the soloist — call and response, elaboration of harmonic patterns, decoration of percussion textures, improvised duets with percussion instruments, free solo improvisation. The details will vary greatly from performance to performance, although the shape of the piece, which encompasses many speeds, moods and textures in its single movement, remains constant.
Instrumentation
This version of Napier’s Bones is scored for piano and percussion as follows:
- Percussion 1 — vibraphone, antique cymbals, rototoms
- Percussion 2 — vibraphones, timpani, 3 triangles, 3 metal plates, 3 brake drums, 3 almglocken.
- Percussion 3 — marimba, glockenspiel, tubular bells, timpani, rasp, bell tree
- Percussion 4. — rasp, marimba, glockenspiel
- Percussion 5 — celesta, bell tree, glockenspiel, 2 bass drums
- Percussion 6 — piano, drum of fluctuating pitch, 6 cymbals, 2 gongs, 2 tamtams, large tamtam.
Score
Contact me if you want to see the score.
The Art of Pizza
Opera for 2 sopranos, mezzo, high tenor, 8 or 9 singers doubling small roles and chorus, accompanied by 14-piece ensemble
Libretto by Anna Maria dell’Oso
The Art of Pizza was commissioned by Chamber Made Opera with funding from the Australia Council.
About the work
The Art of Pizza is about money, the corporate world and greed. It is set in a shopping mall in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta in the early 1980s, at a time when there was still a significant Italian population based there as Asian immigrants were moving into the area. The story focuses on 3 women. Gina, an Italian woman whose husband has left her, runs a struggling pizza joint. Rosie, a Cambodian refugee is her volatile cook. She also works at night as an office cleaner and with her fellow cleaners gambles on the stock exchange with information gleaned from the office rubbish bins to raise money for her daughter’s higher education. Thida, her daughter, is still at school and works part-time in the mall’s supermarket.
The pizza joint is taken over by a pizza franchise, but Rosie continues to make her unorthodox pizzas rather than following the approved recipes. Gina falls for her contact in the pizza world, then her ex returns, now reformed — he has seen the light. And Rosie, haunted by her memories of the Pol Pot years, gambles with her employer’s money.
Written as an opera, but with rather too complex a story line, this piece would work well as a musical by retaining the songs, converting the recitative to dialogue and conveying the Cambodian back story in film, with traditional Cambodian musicians, rather than text, evoking the flashbacks.
Instrumentation
The Art of Pizza is scored for: flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon; horn, trumpet (C), trombone; percussion (2), harp; violins (2), viola, cello and double bass. Tape of electronic sounds also required.
Score
Borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Haiku
For voice, viola and piano
A setting of 21 haiku by Alan Wells published in The New Zealand Haiku Anthology, edited by Cyril Childs (Wellington: The New Zealand Poetry Society Inc., 1993)
Haiku was originally scored for instrumental ensemble and written to celebrate Douglas Lilburn’s 80th birthday. I subsequently rearranged it and and the first performance was given in 1996 by the Dunedin-based Lyric Trio — Ana Good (soprano), Rebecca Maurice (viola) and Joyce Whitehead (piano).
About the work
The haiku are concisely set — they draw on imagery both local and universal.
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ
RNZ Concert recorded Haiku in 1996.
Moments
For SATB choir
4 poems by Cilla McQueen
Moments was commissioned by Jack Speirs for the Southern Consort based in Dunedin but is yet to receive its first performance.
About the work
Moments is a setting of 4 poems from Cilla McQueen’s 1988 collection called Benzina. They are: Silence, Moments, The Angel and Hooper’s Inlet.
Score
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Awa herea
Song cycle for soprano and piano
Text by the composer with translations into Māori by Keri Kaa
Awa herea was commissioned by soprano Tracey Chadwell with assistance from Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council (now Creative New Zealand) and the Arts Council of Great Britain. The first performance was given by Tracey Chadwell and Margaret Nielsen (piano) on 15 July 1993 in the Adam Concert Room at Victoria University School of Music.
About the work
I wrote the words for Awa herea as I was travelling round Te Wai Pounamu — the south island of Aotearoa. The title means ‘braided rivers’.
The work is in 8 sections: Vocalise, Karakia, Awa Herea, The Berries, Lake Ianthe, Scale and perspective, The Sandfly, Awa Herea (conclusion).
After a vocalise and karakia, the song Awa Herea draws on imagery of the east coast rivers. It suggests that a single thread, though strong, has an end — 2 threads, woven together, are much stronger.
The Berries describes a scene walking from Ship Cove in the Marlborough Sounds. Lake Ianthe reacts to a beautiful scene where there is knowledge that behind the fringe of beauty the forest is being clear felled, while Scale and perspective and The Sandfly deal with the comparative length of life cycles. The final section concludes the work; many strands woven together form an enduring, infinite, colourful cloth.
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score and recordings from SOUNZ.
The full work has been recorded by Tracey Chadwell.
Tracey Chadwell’s Song Book — CD
One movement, Karakia, has been recorded by Mere Boynton.
The first movement, Vocalise, is included in an educational resource for primary schools.
The Journey of Mataku Moana
For cello
I wrote The Journey of Matuku Moana in 1992, in response to a commission from the Danish-born Australian-based cellist, Georg Pedersen, who gave its first performance in Sydney in 1993. The commission was funded by the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council.
About the work
Matuku moana is the Māori name of the white-faced heron. This piece was mostly composed in Sydney while I was receiving treatment for breast cancer. I had a large wooden sculpture of a heron in my room, and I completed the work in New Zealand in an environment where herons fed in the mudflats outside my house.
The Journey of Matuku Moana is based on the idea of the double, where the initial ideas are recycled and condensed, and the call of the Australian currawong and the New Zealand korimako (bellbird) recur during the piece.
The music, recorded by Georg Pedersen, was used in Gaylene Preston’s film Titless wonders.
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
The work has been released on 2 CDs you can buy or borrow from SOUNZ.
Listen online to Alexander Ivashkin’s performance from Under the Southern Cross.