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Gillian Whitehead  

"Aria" from Outrageous Fortune

 Year: 1998
for soprano, taonga puoro, flute, bassoon, cello and piano

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John Rimmer  

Galileo

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 1998
a chamber opera using for 6 singers, small chorus and 8 players, also using electroacoustic music and DVD of visuals

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  • Instrumentation
    Television newsreader (spoken voice), Nobelman (baritone), Castelli (tenor), Galileo (baritone), Boy/Angel (mezzo soprano), Three Priests (tenor/baritones), Heretic (baritone), Christina (soprano), Military Man (baritone), Sea Captain (baritone), Troubadour (mezzo soprano), Cardinal Bellarmino (tenor), Pope Urban VIII (bass baritone), Pope John Paul II (baritone), small chorus of townspeople; flute doubling piccolo, oboe, clarinet doubling bass clarinet, horn, piano, percussion, violin and cello. Electroacoustic music played through at least eight loudspeakers. DVD of visuals.
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Gillian Whitehead  

Hineraukatauri

 Year: 1999
duo for piccolo/flute/alto flute, and Maori flutes

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  • Instrumentation
    piccolo, C flute, alto flute. Taonga puoro: tumu tumu, karanga manu, putorino toroa, putorino maine, putorino nui, purerehua, pakunu. Taonga puoro parts mostly improvised.
  • Programme Note

    In the tradition of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, Hine Raukatauri is the goddess of music and dance. She is embodied in the form of the female case-moth, who hangs in the bushes and sings in a pure, high voice to attract the male moths to her. Her hair is found as a fern, the hanging spleenwort, and her voice is heard in the sound of the putorino, an instrument known only in Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand). The putorino is an instrument that can be played in various ways – as a flute, as a trumpet and as a means of enhancing or altering the human voice.

    Hineraukatauri is written for two performers, one playing conventional flutes (piccolo, C and alto flutes), and the other for taonga puoro (instruments). The score features three different putorino, which, like all taonga puoro, (and also the songs and chants) have a small pitch range, rarely exceeding a fourth, which varies from instrument to instrument. Three putorino are used in this piece – one made of albatross bone and two of wood, and both the flute and trumpet voices are used. Other instruments used are a karanga manu (bird-caller), a purerehua (swung bull-roarer) and tumutumu (tapped instruments.)

    The flute player’s part is notated, but the music for the taonga puoro is improvised; there are areas when the flute player is encouraged to improvise with the taonga.

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Gillian Whitehead  

Hinetekakara

 Year: 2004
for kaikaranga, taonga puoro, flute, bassoon and cello

Video Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Taonga puoro: putatara, putorino matai (wheke), pumotomoto, oriori, pupuharakeke (flax snail), pu kaea, nguru rakau maire
  • Programme Note

    Hinetekakara is the ancestress of Aroha Yates-Smith, the kaikaranga (singer) who provided the idea and the text of this piece. Hinetekakara lived on the shores of Lake Rotorua with Ihenga, her husband or father, an eponymous ancestor of the Te Arawa people, when the land was still being settled after the arrival of the Te Arawa canoe from central Polynesia. The four cadenzas, for bassoon, alto flute, flute, cello and bassoon, and bassoon link improvised sections, in which all the instruments participate. The singer initially invokes, accompanied by putatara (conch shell trumpet), the spirit of Hinetekakara, then addresses rituals following the death of her future father-in-law (with putorino), and then the birth of her son (with pumotomoto, an instrument used to assist at child-birth). A voiceless improvisation on pupu harakeke (flax snail), an instrument presaging danger, is followed by Ihenga’s anguished lament as he finds the murdered body of Hinetekakara by the lake, by the place named for her, Ohinemutu, meaning the end of the woman. Finally, she is farewelled as her spirit returns to the afterworld.

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Ross Harris  

Piano Prelude – A landscape with too few lovers

Duration: 03' 30"
a "landscape prelude" for piano

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Anthony Ritchie  

Southern Journeys

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 2000
four movement orchestral work with video

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  • Programme Note

    New Zealand’s landscape has long been a source of inspiration for artists and composers. I was fortunate enough to have enjoyed frequent trips to the mountains when young, and I still remember them fondly to this day. I have written quite a number of works on the theme of New Zealand’s natural environment. So I was very pleased to be asked by the Dunedin Sinfonia (now Southern Sinfonia) and Natural History New Zealand to compose ‘Southern Journeys’.

    After initial discussions in 1999, I was given freedom to come up with my own ‘synopsis’ for the piece. The music was to be written first, and then recorded by the Dunedin Sinfonia so that images could be put to the music. This was a considerable luxury for the composer, as normally the film is made first and later the music is written to fit the images. Natural History was insistent that I should compose my music without the restriction of specific images, and for that I am very grateful.

    Although Southern Journeys is programmatic, I have attempted to incorporate a symphonic logic into the music. Themes are developed and transformed, and there is an element of cyclic form with the return of the opening theme at the very end of the work. Ideally, the music should be able to stand alone without film, and still make sense.

    The first movement is subtitled ‘Ancient South’ and portrays southern landscape, particularly remote areas such as mountains and sounds. The land is constantly being changed by water, snow and wind, the most dramatic example being the effects of avalanches. In the second movement, ‘Southern Adventures’, humans interact with Nature, at sea, in caves, on rock faces, in the air. Although these adventures are often difficult and treacherous, we feel exhilerated by this risky communion with Nature. The third movement, ‘Seasons in the South’, begins with the stillness of lakes and forests in Autumn, and moves on to explore southern bird and sea life. Winter announces its arrival with a storm, followed by the thawing of snow and ice and the first signs of Spring. The last movement, ‘Our Place’, explores our own environment and contrasts it with the natural environment we have witnessed in the previous movements. A note of caution is sounded: we cannot take the natural beauty of the South for granted. We have to respect and care for it, so as to maintain the balance between our needs and the needs of Nature. At the end of the movement a harmony exists between the beautiful aspects of a city like Dunedin and the natural environment.

    Southern Journeys received financial assistance from the Millennium Fund and Natural History New Zealand.

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Gillian Whitehead  

Taurangi

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 1999
for flute and piano

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Helen Fisher   Ngapo Wehi  

Tete Kura (Fern Frond)

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2000
bicultural work for solo soprano and tenor, choir and kapahaka

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Karanga, haka, waiata Tangi, Poi +SATB choral, guitar, soprano and tenor soloists
  • Programme Note

    The title “Tete Kura” represents “fern frond” [from the Maori saying :“Mate atu he tetekura, ara mai he tetekura”, and this is a work about journey and growth dedicated to the Youth of New Zealand. “Tete Kura” takes the shape of a “Hohou Rongo”, a process of reconciliation, where issues of pain and injustice are brought into the open, in order to restore people’s inner dignity and to bring about true peace. It opens with an expression of te taha wairua of two Aotearoa cultures (Karanga and Gregorian Chant “Veni Sancte Spiritus”), then a journey away from te taha wairua and te taha aroha towards greed and materialism (Corporate Beat, Haka). This leads to experiences of pain, confusion and abuse (I Crave That Place, Waiata Tangi ), out of which come insights, hope and a sense of self-worth ( Kia Hoatu He Tumanaako, Karakia ki te Wairua Tapu), to embrace energetically and enthusiastically the questions and challenges of the new millenium : about individuals-in-community, and social and cultural values based on te aroha and te taha wairua (Nga Porowhita Aroha). “Tete Kura” is a bicultural, collaborative composition for choir, kapa haka, kai-karanga and solo soprano and tenor. The music was composed by Helen Fisher, Ngapo and Pimia Wehi and Taru mai-i-tawhiti Kerehoma. The lyrics were written by Ngapo and Pimia Wehi, John Greally, Oriini Kaipara, Helen Fisher, as well as including some biblical extracts. “Tete Kura” was performed by Te Waka Huia and the New Zealand Youth Choir for the Wellington Youth Arts 2000 Festival, being funded by a project grant from Creative New Zealand Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa.

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Anthony Ritchie  

The God Boy

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 2004
An opera in two acts based on the novel 'The God Boy' by Ian Cross

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Jack Body  

The Street Where I Live

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 2007
a "landscape prelude" for piano and CD

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