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Yvette Audain  

Eulogy

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2010
for full symphony orchestra and narrator

  • Instrumentation
    piccolo, flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon 1 and 2, 3 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, 2 percussionists (crash cymbals, suspended cymbals, roto-toms, claves, rain stick, vibraphone), harp, strings and narrator
  • Programme Note

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

    My decision to set this text for orchestra initially arose, not only from reading the poem and appreciating it for what it is, but also from the recent passing of a dear musician colleague with whom I had collaborated on many early jazz projects.

    However, at time of writing, I have become most un-nerved by the senseless loss of young life that has been occurring with alarming regularity at a couple of schools I have recently taught at. It was with these tremendously sad, sudden passings in mind that I completed my work on the piano short score of Eulogy, before commencing work on its orchestration.

    Yvette Audain

  • Availability

M Louise Webster  

Learning to nudge the wind

Duration: 10' 40" Year: 2010
for orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    Piccolo, Flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 Bsn, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timp, Percussion (marimba, susp. cymbal, triangle, tam-tam, metal wind-chimes), strings
  • Programme Note

    Aotearoa is a long narrow land surrounded by sea and buffeted by the wind. We who live here learn to know the direction of the prevailing winds and to track the changes in the sky and on the water. As a child visiting grandparents in Wellington I was mesmerised by the evanescent sweep of wind and wave patterns on the harbour surface as gusts blew silver and black across the water. I listened to the adults talk; they spoke of ‘southerly changes’, of ‘squalls’, and of the wind ‘going around to the south’. A new language that conjured images of a dynamic interchange with the wind. The line ‘learning to nudge the wind’ is taken from a Stella McQueen poem, and captures for me that relationship. ‘Learning to nudge the wind’ was written for St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra and had its first performance in May 2010.

  • Availability

Matthew Davidson  

Music for Viola and Orchestra

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2011
for viola and orchestra

Matthew Davidson  

Robert Schumann / Symphony No. 5

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 2011
originally written for quintet for piano & strings (op. 44) in Eb, this arrangement is orchestrated by Matthew de Lacey Davidson for orchestra

Chris Watson  

sing songs self

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 2011
a single movement piano concerto

Robbie Ellis  

The Lover's Knot

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 2010
for orchestra and actor

  • Instrumentation
    2 fl, 2 ob (2nd doubling c.a.), 2 cl, bsn, cbsn 4 hn, 3 tpt, 2 tbn, b.tbn, tba timp, 2 perc (Triangle, Mark Tree, Large Metal Oil Barrel, Clash Cymbals, Wooden Floor, Sleigh Bells, Suspended Cymbal, Snare Drum, Bass Drum) harp, strings
  • Programme Note

    Walter Bolton was the last man executed for murder in New Zealand, hanged at Mt Eden Prison on 18 February 1957. He was convicted of poisoning his wife Beatrice with arsenic on their Whanganui farm.

    The story of his trial, questionable guilt and subsequent execution continues to raise many questions. Is it right to take a person’s life in exchange for another? What if society’s judgement was wrong? Would our society have made the same judgement today?

    But even more compelling than these moral questions is why a man like Walter Bolton would have been driven to murder in the first place. The prosecution contended that he had deliberately put sheep dip in her food; however arsenic was also found in the farm’s water supply – probably because it had leeched in from the normal daily use of that same sheep dip. The clincher for the jury’s guilty verdict was Walter’s admission that he had been having an affair with his sister-in-law, Florence – salacious but ultimately only circumstantial evidence. The decision to execute him was rushed: the trial took place shortly before Christmas 1956 and the judge and jury would have felt pressed to make it home to their families. Up until his death, Walter continued to maintain his innocence. Florence, a spinster, committed suicide soon after his execution and was rumoured to have left a note admitting to the killing.

    This combination of our script and music is a fictionalised interpretation of these historical circumstances. We have put Walter Bolton in his Mt Eden Prison cell in the early dawn hours before his execution. His mind wanders to his deceased wife Beatrice, his lover Florence, and the grotesque pantomime of the judicial system as he saw it. In The Lover’s Knot, he awaits the hangman’s noose.

  • Availability