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A music-theatre work especially written for Wellington pianist Dan Poynton. Although referring indirectly to religious symbolism, the composition focuses on the physical and mental stress that pianists submit themselves to.

• Body: 14 Stations; computer-set 

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• Jack Body: 14 Stations 

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• Body: 14 Stations 

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The rich overtone resonances from low, rubber-stopped notes on the piano create sensuous single sound moments in the music. These Filipino gong music inspired resonances combine with slow European chorale-like gestures throughout to provide breath moments within an increasingly combative musical texture. The melodic-line derived from Bontok war-chant, usually the prerogative of men, finds full cry in erotic “sea ripples”, which in turn generates long-lyric lines expressive of the poem’s princess meditation on war. Even the chorale-like breath segments work in shortening gasps leading to transfigured Kulintang (Filipino percussion) segments whose dance-like momentum undergird the “metal timbre” climax of work. The text is drawn from Merlinda Bobis’ epic poem Cantata of the Warrior Woman Daragang Magayon – a revisionist re-telling of the Philippines ancient myth associated with the active volcano Mount Mayon. It charts the play of ambivalence and conviction of a beautiful maiden on the eve of battle and is interpreted by the composer as a metaphor of volcanic, erotically-fuelled anger against social injustice, not just in war but in cultural colonisation.

• Crossman: Daragang Magayon Cantata; computer  

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• Daragang Magayon Cantata - Bruce Crossman / Merlinda Bobis 

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• Bruce Crossman: Selected Works (1996-2001) 

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• Bruce Crossman: Intercultural Sounds 

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• Bruce Crossman: Selected Works (1996-2001) Vol. 2 

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• Double Resonances - Bruce Crossman  Year: 2008 

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I heard Alanis Morrissette’s song Hand in My Pocket when I visited Canada in 1996. I’m intrigued by songs that we remember in spite of ourselves. When Alanis sings I’m short but I’m healthy, I’m high but I’m grounded I think of Greg Oh biking to NYC. I do hope that everything’s going be fine, fine, fine.

Juliet Palmer

• Palmer: Five; computer-set 

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• Palmer: Five; computer-set 

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• Juliet Palmer: Five; video 

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• Juliet Palmer: Five 

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• Palmer: Flotsam and Jetsam; computer-set 

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• Palmer, J.: Flotsam and Jetsam; video  Year: 2001 

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• Palmer, J. : Flotsam and Jetsam; mini DV  Year: 2001 

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• Palmer: Flotsam and Jetsam  Year: 2001 

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The Love Sonnets of Michelangelo I wrote for Michael Parmenter, with whom I worked on a programme entitled Between Two Fires (also included was a dance-theatre work I created collaboratively with Michael, using his voice as well as his body, with imagery extracted from the diaries of Franz Kafka.) At the time I was focused on different styles of melody, having just completed my Five Melodies for Piano. Inspired by the lovely voices of some of the then current students in our School of Music, I felt that women’s voices gave the expressive quality I wanted, as well as providing a useful ‘cover’ for the overtly homo-erotic tenor of the texts. The original production used film, shot by my good friend Bayley Watson, showed the dancer’s prostrate figure, swathed in bandages. As the performance unfolded the cloth was gradually cut and pealed back by hands belonging to an old man whose face we never saw, the intended metaphor being of the sculptor cutting away marble to reveal the male form that he sensed already existed within the stone.

The work has since had other performances that have discarded the theatrical elements, most successfully when each setting is prefaced by a reading of the poem in translation.

These settings of some of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s most personal sonnets articulate the anguish of love and desire, as well as the despair of old age. The musical style combines the theatricality of Italian bel canto with the direct expressivity of folksong.

• Body: Love Sonnets of Michelangelo; facsimile 

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• Jack Body and Michael Parmenter: Love Sonnets 

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• Baroque Voices: How Great is the Pleasure   Year: 2001 

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• Waiteata Collection of New Zealand Music Vol. 6 - Composer Portrait: Jack Body  Year: 2003 

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This work has been chastised as a mere Bartók pastiche. While this remains true, I do not think it should be so easily dismissed. Keep in mind that it was written by a 21-year-old, and as such, I believe, shows a fair degree of maturity. It borrows and adapts Hungarian melodies (I have subsequently forgotten which) taken from one of Bartók’s myriad collections.

• Davidson: Magyar Rondo; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Magyar Rondo; computer-set 

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• John Elmsly (ed.): Canzona Vol 7 No 23  Year: 1985 

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• Magyar Rondo - Rudolf Haken 

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• Talencourt  Year: 2008 

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• Downes: Noise; Video  Year: 1998 

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• Downes: Generation  Year: 2004 

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When I dropped by in the springtime, there was a futon in the sphere. Someone had moved in and made it their bedroom. Vilma’s song is inspired by the Beach Boys’ classic tune, In My Room, along with a little snippet of Schubert’s _The Hurdy-Gurdy Man" (from Die Winterreise): “In my room No-one sees me, no-one hears me… Now it’s dark and I’m alone But I won’t be afraid.”

• Palmer: Room; computer set 

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• Palmer: Room; computer set 

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• Palmer: Selected Works I 

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• Palmer: In My Room  Year: 1999 

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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.

• Anthony Ritchie: Southern Journeys  Year: 2000 

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• Anthony Ritchie: Southern Journeys  Year: 2002 

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Writing Swerve began as an exercise in reading. A poem caught my ear and lulled me with its rhythm: lilting and stalling, flowing and overflowing the bounds of the line. Just as there are an infinite number of readers, so are there infinite ways of reading a poem. I wanted to capture these subtle variations of interpretation. The words which constitute poetry can be simple and familiar, but new meanings jump out unexpectedly from one reading to the next. I imagined a piece of music which travelled with the reader: pressing forward, pausing, repeating, circling back – a process of rereading in which certain images start to resound, gaining clarity with each recurrence.

Poetry doesn’t reveal itself on the first reading. It is not until we reach the end of the music that we begin to understand what captivates us.

Juliet Palmer

• Palmer: Swerve; computer-set 

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• Palmer: Swerve; computer-set 

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• Palmer: Swerve; computer-set 

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• Juliet Palmer: Swerve Documentary and Performance 

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