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violin, cello, piano (some preparation required); all performers required to speak

Piano preparation: the strings between c’’’ and a’’’ need to have a flat metal object laid on top to achieve a bright, jangly ringing sonority (especially from mm 26-37). This/these to be removed by the pianist in the section from m 45.

The three strings F, G, A flat, should have firm rubber wedges between them to create a dull thuddy sonority (for the section at m42), but with a still discernible pitch

At water’s birth is a meditative, ritualistic work, whose sonic palette includes prepared piano sonorities and some vocalising from the players, including whispering, spoken words and whistling.

The pushing out of the boundaries of the conventional instrumental sounds is something I have employed in other works such as the whistling and knocking on the piano lid in small blue for piano and the bell and tamtam playing in Ring True. The meandering sections of the music suggest a relationship with the forces of water, its depth, currents and undercurrents and there is a sense of ritual in some of the chant-like rhythms.

• de Castro-Robinson: At Water's Birth; facsimile  

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• de Castro-Robinson: At Water's Birth; facsimile 

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• de Castro-Robinson: At Water's Birth; facsimile 

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• NZ Premieres 2008 Vol. 1 

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• NZTrio: Flourishes  Year: 2010 

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oboe, violin, viola, cello

Fragile Earth

Fragile Earth is a conservationist’s lament and was inspired by the anti-nuclear poem “No Ordinary Sun” written in the early 1970’s by the celebrated poet Hone Tuwhare.

The piece presents a brooding chant which undergoes variation by means of rhythmic and textural contrasts, organic growth and fragmentation.

Fragile Earth was commissioned by Tom and Anne Morris for the Ensemble Philharmonia and first performed on 20 November 2004 at the Auckland Public Library auditorium.

Fragile Earth

Fragile Earth is a conservationist’s lament and was inspired by the anti-nuclear poem “No Ordinary Sun” written in the early 1970’s by the celebrated poet Hone Tuwhare.

The piece presents a brooding chant which undergoes variation by means of rhythmic and textural contrasts, organic growth and fragmentation.

Fragile Earth was commissioned by Tom and Anne Morris for the Ensemble Philharmonia and first performed on 20 November 2004 at the Auckland Public Library auditorium.

• Rimmer: Fragile Earth; computer set 

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• Rimmer: Fragile Earth; computer-set 

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• Rimmer: Fragile Earth; computer set 

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• Fragile Earth  Year: 2004 

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This work was intended to feature something of New Zealand’s spirit and is a ‘deconstructed’ version of Now is the Hour.

• notes from a journey  Year: 2010 

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Taonga puoro (improvised): poi awhioahio, hue puruhau, koauau ponga ihu, nguru, ororuarangi, ku, putatara, pu kaea, pumotomoto, pupu harakekek, tumutumu

Hineputehue translates literally as the woman of the sound of the gourd, and she is the Maori goddess of peace. The work was written in 2001, at the time of President Bush’s State of the Union address shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan, and suggests the fragility rather than the celebration of peace, particularly in a pre-European environment.

A number of instruments used in Hineputehue are made of gourds – the gourd, which carried food and water, is a symbol of peace. These include the poi awiowhio, a very quiet bird lure which is swung around the head, the tiny koauau ponga ihu or noseflute which ends the piece, the hue puru hau, a large gourd which is blown across its top opening and the gourd rattles played by the quartet. Two other wind instruments frequently made from gourds, the nguru and the ororuarangi, are also used. Other instruments are the putatara or conch shell trumpet, traditionally used for signalling, the pu kaea or war trumpet, a nguru niho paraoa or flute made from a whale’s tooth, the pumotomoto, associated with birth, and tumutumu (tapped percussion).

There is a similarity between the stringed instruments of the quartet and the gourds, in that they are made from plant material, with sound emitted through sound holes. Another link is the ku, the only stringed instrument known to Maori, which is a small musical bow played like a jaws harp (jews harp) using the mouth as a resonating chamber. The idea of ororuarangi, which can be translated as spirit voice (or double stopping in a different context) has had some influence on this piece as in the parallel movement of the strings.

• Whitehead: Hineputehue; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Hineputehue; computer set 

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• Whitehead: Hineputehue; computer set 

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• NZIAF: Gillian Whitehead Portrait; part 2 

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• Whitehead: Bright Silence  Year: 2002 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi  Year: 2007 

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2 alto voices/kazoos, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor sax, baritone sax, trumpet, cornet, sousaphone, trombone, electric guitar, banjo, piano accordion, double bass, drum kit

The march of the crocodiles refers to the ongoing silliness caused by bureaucratic systems and how we all play our part in them.

We play a little tune, (this might be in the form of a phone call or a letter, a question, a request) the receiver does a little dance, a message gets passed along, someone else plays a tune, the next person does a little dance etc….until eventually a little tune comes back for us to do a little dance to.

I am fascinated by the amount of paperwork, human resources and time that can be involved in even the smallest and simplest of enquiries, not to mention the tedium. This silly game is so dreary it’s almost amusing!

The piece is played tutti then the ensemble divides into three groups and uses material from the composition to improvise. Eventually the ensemble becomes a choir.

• Rosie Langabeer: March of the Crocodiles 

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• Zirkus! – Sirius Music 

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2 alto voices, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, trumpet, 2 trombones, sousaphone, electric guitar, banjo, piano, piano accordion, cello, double bass and drum kit

Milly Mae-Moet is dressed up like a picture, anticipating the carnival today, with carousels and horses, hot air balloons. Ribbons in her hair and petticoat of crinoline, dance in the wind. Mother Mae-Moet buys candy-floss and toffee, pretty balloons for her, darling Milly Mae grows stubborn and persistent, wants more balloons. She has dreams of flying, never gives up trying for one more balloon. Milly Mae-Moet is willful and unyielding she gets her way, one more balloon, to take her away. Happily flying away too high to save…

This piece tells the story of Milly Mae-Moet, the stubborn yet admirably driven girl who convinces her mother to buy her all the balloons at the carnival so she my fulfill her dream of flying. She happily ascends (much to her mothers distress) through the insect layer into the bird layer and eventually into infinity.

The piece is a combination of scored sections and work-shopped improvisations that were developed with the ensemble in December 2007.

• Rosie Langabeer: Milly Mae-Moet 

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• Zirkus! – Sirius Music 

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One winter morning, a short walk from the marae at Waihi, on the southern shore of Lake Taupo, I stood on the shore to watch the sun rise. Behind me, a waterfall lead to a small stream that flowed into the lake, imposing its own patterns on those of the lake. The water was uniformly grey, but as the sun rose, for a moment the tops of the ripples were golden, with darker valleys between, before the whole area was flooded with light. So the ideas behind this trio have to do with the changing perspectives of patterns in water – in the bubbling of streams, the tumble of a waterfall, in the spiralling eddies where stream meets lake at sunrise.

In the opening movement, a group of short themes and ideas initially form a mosaic-like section, which recurs in developed and varied forms around more reflective passages. The second movement reverses the first, in that slow, sustained sections are interrupted by more energetic material, and the final movement draws all the previous ideas together.

• Whitehead: Piano Trio; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Piano Trio; computer set 

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• Whitehead: Piano Trio; computer-set 

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• NZTrio: bright tide moving between  Year: 2008 

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• Ellis: Play Some Metallica; computer-set 

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• Ellis: Play Some Metallica; computer-set 

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• Robbie Ellis: Play Some Metallica 

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Puhake ki te rangi, which translates as spouting to the skies is a celebration of whales, and was written late in 2006 for the New Zealand String Quartet and Richard Nunns as a project undertaken while I was the CNZ/NZSM composer-in-residence, living in the Lilburn House in Wellington.


Although one section is based on a transcription of whale song, there is no programme to the piece – no confrontation with humanity, for instance. The guiding principles were the extreme range of whale song, the changing patterns of their song, and the image, given to me by the late Tungia Baker, of a whale in Campbell Island waters allowing seal pups at play to slide down her flanks over and over again until, tiring of the game, she flipped them gently away.


The taonga puoro (Maori instruments) used in this piece are all made from whale bone or the bone from the albatross, the whale’s avian counterpart. In the order they are played, the taonga are, the percussive tumutumu, made from the jaw of a pilot whale washed up on Farewell Spit, a karanga manu (bird caller) made from an orca tooth, two nguru (flutes) made from the teeth of sperm whales that stranded one in Tory channel and one at Paekakariki, two putorino koiwi toroa (instruments made here from albatross bones, which have two different voices, being played as flute or trumpet), made here from the wingbones of a wandering albatross from the sub-Antarctic islands and a young royal albatross from the Chatham Islands, a nguru made from the cochlea of a hump-backed whale and finally a putorino koiwi toroa, especially made for this piece from the rib of a right whale that beached at Cable Bay. Members of the Quartet play percussive instruments – whalebone tumutumu and tokere (castanets). All these instruments were made by Brian Flintoff.


In the score, the taonga puoro sections are improvised; mostly the quartet parts are notated, but sometimes the players are required to improvise.

• Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi; computer set 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi; audio 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Puhake ki te rangi  Year: 2007 

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clarinet, guitar and cello

• The Poems of Lauris Edmond  Year: 2000 

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