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This song cycle for soprano and piano has texts by the composer in Maori and English.

“Awa Herea memorably evokes the physical appearance of symbolic significance of these braided rivers… cosmic weather-driven energy.” (Covell, Sydney Morning Herald).

“Its pace was shrewdly varied and the music encompassed a range of styles – from sung declamation to florid lyricism – without incongruity.” (Jack, Independent).

“The cycle displays all the characteristics of her [Gillian Whitehead’s] mature work. The vocal line is at once exultant and contemplative, the piano writing incisive or lulling; the formal shaping novel yet accessible. It is a memorable piece, filled with the energetic spirit of the natural world and finding through that spirit its own serenity.”

• Whitehead: Awa Herea; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Awa Herea; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Awa Herea; facsimile 

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• NZIAF: Gillian Whitehead Portrait; part 2 

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• Waikohu: Mere Boynton and Friends 

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• Tracey Chadwell's Songbook  Year: 1995 

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• Ears Wide Open Taringa Areare Education Resource CD  Year: 2000 

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In 1990 I attended the launch of Cilla McQueen’s new book Berlin Diary. This diary made a big impression on me, initially because it brought back memories of my own trip to Europe. I also liked the brilliant mixing of poetic and prosaic styles, and the vivid descriptions of people and places. Something else that impressed me was the strong contrast between the inhuman political situation in Berlin (the wall was still up) and the natural, peaceful beauty of Dunedin, New Zealand (Cilla’s and my own home town). A few months later the Aramoana tragedy (where a deranged gunman killed 13 people – Aramoana is a remote seaside township at the end of the Otago peninsula) changed that around. Cilla’s beautiful, almost ecstatic centrepiece in the dairy “O Aramoana” now took on a terrible subtext, and it seemed as if the inhumanity of Berlin had come to the remote beach community. A year later, the Berlin wall finally came down, and the unification of East and West Germany became a reality.

When Judy Bellingham approached me in 1991 to write a song cycle for her, I immediately wanted to set extracts from the Berlin Diary, to capture these layers of dramatic historical irony along with the essence of a marvellous text. In reality I was able to only set a fraction of the diary to music, and hence the title of my work – Berlin Fragments (which I would also like to think suggests the breaking of the Berlin wall into bits). After talking to Cilla about the work, I decided to make “O Aramoana” the heart of the work, around which somewhat shorter texts are clustered. Sections are often linked by a recurrent chord in the bottom of the piano (the dyad E-F), which I have imagined as a tombstone in musical terms. Framing the work are brief sections which convey the flight to and from Berlin (the “green below” being an unmistakable reference to a return to New Zealand).

The 23 minutes of this song cycle run continuously.

• Ritchie A.: Berlin Fragments; facsimile 

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• Bellingham, Dennis, Rawson: NZ vocal music  Year: 2006 

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• Besser: Music for Peace Volume One  Year: 2002 

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This dance theatre project was commissioned to celebrate the New Zealand Women’s Suffrage Centennial, and explores a range of historical and contemporary issues. It is based on documents written by Kate Shepherd and was choreographed by Susan Jordan.

• Fisher: Bone of Contention; facsimile 

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• Fisher: Bone of Contention (excerpt); facsimile 

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• Helen Fisher: Bone of Contention  Year: 1993 

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Original music for the documentary Lands of Our Fathers – My African Legacy.

• Jonathan Besser: Lands of our Fathers - my African Legacy  Year: 2004 

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• de Castro-Robinson: Chaos of Delight II; facsimile 

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• De Castro-Robinson: A Chaos of Delight II; facsimile 

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• A Chaos of Delight: music by Eve de Castro-Robinson  Year: 1998 

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Children and Adults was conceived as a song cycle, commissioned by Rosemary Stott for the Klarion Trio in 1992. The different ways that children and adults view the world has been a recurring source of fascination for the composer (who has reared three children of his own). This is encapsulated in these four settings, in which issues such as life, death, survival and creativity emerge as the main themes.

• Ritchie: Children and Adults; facsimile 

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• New Zealand Poets in Song - Anna and Matthew Leese sing songs by Anthony Ritchie  Year: 2008 

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Original music for the documentary Lands of Our Fathers – My African Legacy.

• Jonathan Besser: Lands of our Fathers - my African Legacy  Year: 2004 

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• Rimmer: Composition 9; facsimile 

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• Rimmer: Electronic Sounds for Compositions 6-10 

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• John Rimmer: Soundweb  Year: 1979 

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• Freed: Deserted Beach; facsimile 

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• Freed: Deserted Beach; facsimile 

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• Freed: Deserted Beach; facsimile 

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• New Zealand Composers: Franchi, Axtens, Bowater, Freed, Lockwood 

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• The Music of Dorothy Freed 

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