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.

Pākuru

Voice and instrumental ensemble

For mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, viola, cello, piano and percussion

A setting of Hone Tūwhare’s poem, ‘Thine own hands have fashioned’

The first performance of Pākuru was given by Pierrot Players conducted by Peter Maxwell Davies in 1968 in Berlin’s Akademie der Künste in a programme presenting young British composers.

About the work

Hone Tūwhare’s text comes from his first poetry collection No ordinary sun (1967).

Pākuru was first aired at the prestigious Dartington Summer School of Music, but the first public performance was in Berlin with a very poor audience as there was a strike in Berlin that day. It was the first piece I wrote when I arrived in London.

The title Pākuru means a chant accompanied by tapped sticks, or a taonga pūoro consisting of wooden sticks tapped together: there is a substantial role for percussion in the piece.

Score

Contact me if you would like to see the score.

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Fantasia on three notes

Piano

Fantasia on three notes was my first commission, requested by New Zealand pianist Tessa Birnie. She gave its first performance for Radio Turkey in 1967.

About the work

When I was writing Fantasia on three notes, I had begun studying with Peter Maxwell Davies in Adelaide, and revelled in discovering ways to extend and control my expanding technique, resulting in a technically difficult piece.

Emma Carlé writes:

‘The title refers not so much to free fantasy but to the imagination required to create music from minimal material — in this case, the opening 3-note motive. The work is in 3 sections, corresponding to these notes, and the fabric of the entire piece is generated from them. There are patterns that emerge within sections, as well as those spanning the whole work, trills and tempo changes included.

Because of the inherent symmetry of the generated material, with layers building up both forwards and backwards, the composer’s original intention was to make a palindromic structure, but it became instead, a through-composed work with coda.’

Scores and recordings

The score was published by Waiteata Music Press in 2001.

Fantasia on three notes — publication

Waiteata also released a recording in their CD series.

Waiteata Composer Portrait — CD

Qui natus est

Choral music

Carol for SATB choir

Latin and English text

Qui natus est was first performed by the University of Auckland Choir.

About the work

The mediaeval text of this carol is macaronic, mixing Latin and English phrases, and was written in Adelaide in 1966.

The Latin text translates as, ‘He who was born of a virgin, O Lord, grant me thy salvation.’

Score and recording

Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.

Qui natus est — SOUNZ

The University of Auckland Festival Choir released this work on CD.

New Zealand Choral Music — CD

Three bridges to cross PRIVATE

Chamber ensemble (2-7 players), Film and theatre

For flute, violin and gongs

Three bridges to cross was composed during my time as a student in Sydney.

About the work

Three bridges to cross is music for a film about about Cambodia published by Australian Broadcasting Corporation and NHK (Japan) in 1966.

Score

The score is in the National Library of New Zealand and can be viewed with my permission.

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Karakia

Piano, Teaching works

3 pieces for piano

These short pieces are suitable for intermediate performers and were written while I was a student at the University of Sydney.

Score

Contact me if you are interested in seeing the score.

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Three improvisations for solo oboe

Solo instrument

I wrote these 3 short pieces — which are not really improvisations — while I was an undergraduate at Victoria University of Wellington. They waited 27 years for their first performance which was given by Diana Craig in Katoomba, Australia.

Scores and recordings

Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.

Three improvisations — SOUNZ

A Rattle CD with a performance by Vilém Veverka was released in 2018.

Shadows crossing water — CD

RNZ Concert recorded the work in 2012.

Three improvisations — audio