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Jeni Little  

Betwixt

Duration: 00' 30" Year: 1999
for flute, bass clarinet, bass trombone, cello and double bass

Anthony Ritchie  

Double Concerto for bass clarinet and cello

Duration: 19' 00" Year: 1999

  • Instrumentation
    2222; 2200; 2 perc (bass drum, side drum, glock, xylophone, sus. cymbal, strings (87652 approx)
  • Programme Note

    The Double Concerto was designed to explore the unusal combination of solo instruments, extend the soloists and, at the same time, be performable by regional orchestras.

    The opening movement has a lilting quality and is based on the Brahms’ lullaby, which only appears (abridged) at the end, played on glockenspiel. The three themes that appear in this movement are related, in some way, to this lullaby. The movement is dedicated to my daughter Annabelle, who was born some months before the composition of this work. A short melody based on letters from her name (A-A-B-E-E) is played by the soloists in the coda.

    By contrast, the second movement is fast and jagged, with a somewhat playful second theme shared between the soloists and woodwinds. The main theme has a toccata-like quality, and builds up to a strong conclusion.

    Whereas birth was the theme behind the first movement, it is death that concerns the third, and in particular the sudden death of a close friend and musician, Angela Campbell, at the time of writing this concerto. It is an intimate piece for the two soloists only, and based on letters from Angela’s name (A-G-E-A) which are heard at the beginning as a recurrent bass line. The cello melody at the start is a variation on a melody from the first movement, suggesting birth and death are inextricably linked.

    The mood lightens in the finale which is a slightly bizarre waltz based on two contrasting themes. Near the end, the soloists have a cadenza which flows into the coda uninterrupted.

  • Availability

Juliet Palmer  

Flotsam and Jetsam

Duration: 50' 00" Year: 1999
an interdisciplinary performance for mezzo soprano, piano, and dancer

Patrick Shepherd  

Flute Concerto

 Year: 1999, r. 2002
for solo flute and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    1121; 1000; timp, perc: claves, triangle, snare drum, whip, bongoes, xylophone, vibraphone and marimba; strings
  • Programme Note

    A sense of optimism pervades this work – remarkable considering that during the writing of it some of my worst fears were realised. I lost my father and find it hard to reconcile myself to his passing, yet he lives on in me and for that I am grateful.

    To Steve and to Edwin I say farewell, too – Steve was a friend, colleague and the bass player in my band, dying tragically young in a road accident the week before my father died. Edwin Raymond was a significant influence in my teenage years and I am only sorry that I did not write this sooner so he could have conducted it.

    The piece is not, however, about death. It is not gloomy. The middle movements are reflective and peaceful and the outer movements are lively and rhythmic. If there is an optimistic side of death it is that life becomes more intense and more meaningful. The spirit of the finale is testament to this, ending the work vigorously and on an optimistic note.

    The concerto was premiered on 7 November 1999 with Carol Hohauser as soloist, accompanied by the Da Capo Chamber Orchestra under conductor Mark Hodgkinson. The concerto was revised significantly in 2002 for the Russian premiere in May 2002 with the Kuzbass Symphony Orchestra. The work was written for Carol and I thank her for her enthusiasm, musicianship and for believing in my work.

  • Availability

Penny Axtens  

For Violin, Violoncello and Piano

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1999
for piano trio

  • Programme Note

    For Violin, Violoncello and Piano was completed in 1999 for the final year of my Masters degree. It was first performed at the Nelson Composers Workshop that year by Mark Menzies, Katherine Hebley and Donald Nicholson. Here it received the Workshop prize, and later in the year the work also received the main prize in the Victoria University School of Music Composition Competition.

    The piece follows no programmatic ‘storyline’ but moves rather within shifting emotional sound-worlds. The opening is very ‘inward’, and the intensity eventually builds and explodes into areas of anger or yearning, or maybe something far more subconscious and indefinable. Moments of beauty surface above the intensity, and the journey ends having come full circle – introspective, transcendent, resigned.

    Penelope Axtens
    Notes taken from NZTrio – Spark, Morrison Music Trust MMT2066

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Hineraukatauri

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

  • 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.

  • Availability

Jeff Henderson  

Innocence of Light

 Year: 1999
a theatrical work

Philip Dadson  

MAYA

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 1999
a counter-millennial fanfare for orchestra

Ross Harris  

Ricochet

Duration: 08' 00" Year: 1999
for three percussionists

Jeni Little  

Shanti

Duration: 04' 09" Year: 1999
for 4-part vocal group with digital soundscape

  • Programme Note

    Shanti is an electroacoustic work and an elegy. It is dedicated to four people – my close friend David who died from skin cancer in 1991; Georgia who died in 1997, a past student who was killed in a motorbike accident; my Nana who died in 1997; and Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn who also died in 1997, the world’s finest Qawaali singer from Pakistan.


    All of these deaths had a strong impact on me and inspired the composition of this work. Each of the dedicatees has a section (or verse) which refers directly to them. The piece ends with a life-affirming coda – the simple act of having the sun on our back always makes us feel better. The backing track is a digital soundscape with manipulated vocals layered throughout.

    Jeni Little

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