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.
Camelot
For mezzo-soprano, piano and bassoon
Poems by Glenn Colquhoun
The first performance of Camelot was given by Janet Roddick (soprano), Emma Sayers (piano) and Ben Hoadley (bassoon) at St Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin on 16 October 2008.
About the work
Camelot, a collaboration between Glenn Colquhoun and me, is a response to a visit by 10 artists on the Breaksea Girl, skippered by Lance Shaw and Ruth Dalley, to Dusky and Doubtful Sounds in Fiordland, and particularly to a trip up Camelot, the river that flows into Gaer Arm in Doubtful Sound.
Glenn’s poems, cryptic and spare, relate to old Chinese poetic forms, and the cycle traces the poet’s travelling up the river, and, changed by what he learns, his return to the open water. The titles of the poems draw on imagery very apparent on this journey.
One thing that was made very apparent on that journey was the extent of the degradation of the environment, because of the depredations of deer, goats, rats, possums and other pests, which have made the forest a silent place, where biodiversity is acutely threatened.
Both the performances and the journey to the sounds were devised as a fundraiser by the Caselberg Trust, which is raising money to purchase the Broad Bay house of Anna and John Caselberg, for use as an artist’s residence.
Camelot is dedicated to Ruth Dalley and Lance Shaw.
Score and recordings
Borrow the score from SOUNZ, or borrow or buy a recording.
Matariki
For solo mezzo-soprano
Text by the composer in te reo Māori
The first performance was given by mezzo-soprano Ana Good at the Waitaha Matariki celebration in the Dunedin Art Gallery in June 2008.
About the work
Matariki was written for a double celebration — to mark Matariki, the Māori mid-winter festival, and Ana’s birthday.
Scores and recordings
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Hear an online performance and my introduction recorded at a concert of my works by the Auckland Chamber Orchestra.
Fragments from Roxburgh
For viola
About the work
I wrote this short piece to celebrate Elizabeth Kerr’s 60th birthday, and Gillian Ansell played it at a party in April 2008, to mark the occasion.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score rom SOUNZ.
Fragments from Roxburgh — SOUNZ
Victoria Jaenecke performed the work in 2019.
Passio
Chamber orchestra or large ensemble, Choral music, Collaborations
For voices, brass, woodwind and percussion
The first performance of Passio was given by The Tudor Consort conducted by Alistair Carey and the Royal Air Force Band conducted by Owen Clarke, on 2 June 2006 at the Great Hall, Massey University, Wellington. The soloists were Alistair Carey (Evangelist), Brian Hesketh (Christus) and Madeleine Pierard (Spiritus).
About the work
Conceived by composer and close friend Jack Body, Passio is a re-contextualised version of Richard Davy’s (c.1465-1538) Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christe.
Jack invited composers associated with the New Zealand School of Music — David Farquhar, Ross Harris, Michael Norris, Lissa Meridan and me — to work on a movement of the work each. My contribution was the Gethsemane narrative.
The premiere was memorable as the audience was encouraged to walk around the performance area during the performance which took place in the large and resonant Great Hall at Massey University. The work was reconstructed for the 2017 Auckland Festival.
Recordings
There is an audio recording of the first performance, and a video of a performance at the Auckland Festival in 2017.
Reviews
William Dart and Alex Taylor wrote reviews of the Auckland Festival performance.
Stroll through Passio — New Zealand Herald
What would Jack do? A review of Passio — The Pantograph Punch
Interview
Carla van Zon, Director of the Auckland Festival, and I were interviewed when the Auckland Festival performance was in preparation.
Ascot Suite
For viola
About the work
Ascot Suite was written in the form of a mini-suite to celebrate the wedding of Charlotte Wilson and Paul Mann. It is part of a 2-movement work, with the other movement, Two Pages, contributed by Lyell Cresswell. The pieces were played by Gillian Ansell at Paul and Charlotte’s wedding breakfast in Christchurch in January 2007.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
Puhake ki te rangi
For string quartet and taonga pūoro
Puhake ki te rangi was written while I was the Creative NZ/ NZ School of Music Composer-in-Residence. The premiere was given by the NZ String Quartet with Richard Nunns (taonga pūoro) on 6 February 2007 at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson.
About the work
Puhake ki te rangi, which translates as ‘spouting to the skies’ is a celebration of whales.
Although one section is based on a transcription of whale song, there is no programme to the piece — no confrontation with humanity, for instance. The guiding principles were the extreme range of whale song, the changing patterns of their song, and the image, given to me by the late Tungia Baker, of a whale in Campbell Island waters allowing seal pups at play to slide down her flanks over and over again until, tiring of the game, she flipped them gently away.
In the score, the taonga pūoro sections are improvised; mostly the quartet parts are notated, but sometimes the players are required to improvise.
Instrumentation
The taonga pūoro used in this piece are all made from whale bone or the bone from the albatross, the whale’s avian counterpart.
In the order they are played, the taonga, all made by Brian Flintoff, are:
- the percussive tumutumu, made from the jaw of a pilot whale washed up on Farewell Spit
- a karanga manu (bird caller) made from an orca tooth
- 2 nguru (flutes) made from the teeth of sperm whales that stranded, one in Tory channel and one at Paekakariki
- 2 putorino koiwi toroa (instruments made here from albatross bones, which have 2 different voices, being played as flute or trumpet), made here from the wingbones of a wandering albatross from the sub-Antarctic islands and a young royal albatross from the Chatham Islands
- a nguru made from the cochlea of a hump-backed whale and finally a putorino koiwi toroa, especially made for this piece from the rib of a right whale that beached at Cable Bay.
Members of the quartet play percussive instruments — whalebone tumutumu and tokere (castanets).
Scores and recordings
The New Zealand String Quartet and Richard Nunns have recorded this work.
Listen to the title track online.
Puhake ki te rangi — audio on video
There are also 2 performances by the New Zealand String Quartet with Rob Thorne online.