“You’ve got to find some way of saying it without saying it.” – Duke Ellington

Biography

Born and resident in Auckland, New Zealand, Yvette is a prolific freelance composing musician, her principal instruments being saxophone and clarinet. She holds a Master of Music in composition from Victoria University of Wellington, and a Bachelor of Music in composition and clarinet from the University of Auckland, from whence she also holds a Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Secondary). Her music has been performed throughout New Zealand as well as in Australia, Japan and the USA.

Yvette’s performance experience encompasses classical (Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; New Zealand Opera), jazz (Brett’s New Internationals; the Frank E. Evans Band; National Dixie), folk (Doris; seisiuns and folk festivals throughout New Zealand), concert band (the Royal New Zealand Navy Band; the Band of the Wellington and Hawkes Bay Regiment; Auckland Wind Orchestra), and free improvisation (Vitamin S). She has also performed entirely improvised sets accompanied by a DJ.

Yvette continues to have her music performed by the APO, whose talented team of arrangers she joined in 2008. She was part of their 2010/2011 Graduate Composers’ Workshop (dir. Kenneth Young) with her work Eulogy (text: Olivia Macassey; narrator: Stuart Devenie). This work received its premiere in the APO programme ‘Works With Words’, as part of the May 2011 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

Recent commissions include Three Auckland Nocturnes which was performed by the Auckland Mandolinata Orchestra at the 2008 FAME international mandolin orchestra festival in Sydney, Walking Bach which was premiered by the same ensemble in Auckland, January 2011, and Felix the Cat: The Magic Bag, a short cartoon soundtrack for the Auckland Philharmonia Wind Quintet.

On March 6, 2011, Yvette presented the well-attended ‘Grooves Unspoken: Music by Yvette Audain’, a programme consisting entirely of her own chamber music, at St Lukes Church, Remuera, Auckland, in association with the 2011 Auckland Fringe Festival.

Yvette currently keeps herself busy and happy with her itinerant teaching schedule (saxophone, clarinet, composition) in several Auckland schools. She also relishes the opportunity to compose music for her students to learn and perform.

“I enjoyed performing and recording Yvette Audain’s Eulogy for narrator and orchestra very much. Such a warmth of texture and harmonies which created a sympathetic palette for Olivia Macassey’s word painting” – Kenneth Young

“Yvette’s music always has a freshness of her own, often a quirky sense of humour, and an artistic freedom, especially in the more Eastern-style pieces I’ve heard or played in other Auckland performances, such as APO composition workshops, APO commissioned arrangements for youth concerts, 175 East, APO’s Remix, APOPS ensemble concerts, and the Clocktower Concerts of The Committee.” – Katherine Hebley, cellist, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and 175 East

Awards
Bishop Junior (1996) and Senior (1997) Scholarships
Llewellyn Jones Prize in Music for Piano (1999)
Graduate scholarship from the New Zealand Federation of University Women (2001)
2nd place in the Sky City Auckland Wind Orchestra Composers’ Competition (1998)
Several placings in the Auckland University Lilburn Composition Prize Concerts (1996 – 4th; 1998 – 1st; 1999 – highly commended)

Selected Works

• Works (39)
• Arrangements (7)
• Awards (2)
• Media On Demand (3)