Search Music:

In my work as a composer I have found bringing together classical and jazz musicians to be a rich and unique way of working. I have experience in both fields and my compositional talent and interest lies genuinely across the two art forms.

This piece has been specifically composed for these performers and their unique sets of skills. Each performer is of a very high calibre and each possesses something special and unique in their playing and approach to music making. Mike Kime and Reuben Derrick often have moments of freedom as they are both accomplished improvisers. Gretchen Dunsmore and Mark Le Roche are classically trained performers with excellent skills and intelligent ears and minds. I knew that each of them would bring something to the work that would be unique and exciting.

More recently my creative interest in movement and form has expanded to contemporary dance and I wanted to involve and include another artistic discipline in this work. Collaborating with Julia Milsom has been an exciting new venture for me. The nature of the sounds within the piece are highly applicable to contemporary dance and have been interpreted and expressed with considerable talent and skill by Julia.

Layers of sound in time is a theme I have developed extensively in the piece. The layers interact, evolve, contrast, compliment, and conflict with each other to create a depth of space and time between them.

The work is an exploration of the timelessness that comes in moments of deep introspection through evocative sounds and movement.

Alex van den Broek

• van den Broek: Still Standing Silent; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:

• van den Broek: Still Standing Silent; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Alex van den Broek: Still Standing Silent; video 

  Media on Demand | Embedded
  

• Alex van den Broek: Still Standing Silent  Year: 2009 

  DVD
  
  • Borrow

Suite for String Quartet was commissioned by Christopher Marshall through the 2009 SOUNZtender project of the Centre for New Zealand Music. The commission was originally intended for a solo instrument but Christopher had an interesting starting point in mind for the piece: a work for string quartet with a series of movements inspired by four stylistic models from moments in music history: chant, gigue, tango and the music of the second Viennese School. Each movement would feature (either solo or concertante-style) a member of the quartet.

I approached Suite for String Quartet with a level of abstraction to the styles in question. It is less a series of imitations than an exposition of certain distinctive elements of each style. I found myself inspired (at different points in the process) by acoustic, harmonic, rhythmic, structural and emotional properties of these styles. Each of the four movements feature a particular player (cello, violin II, viola and violin I, in that order) – but the other three also play in each movement.

Calling the piece Suite for String Quartet is reflective of the ‘baroque’ approach to each movement, inspired by the Bach cello suites. The movement titles are: I: Canto; II: Scorrevole; III: Tango; IV: Bagatelle
I like the double meaning of ‘canto’ – meaning both ‘voice’ and a poetic unit of measurement, and the ubiquitous association of the word ‘bagatelle’ with Webern and Schoenberg. ‘Scorrevole’ in a musical context usually means ‘florid’ or ‘swiftly unfolding’.

Suite for String Quartet was composed in residence at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, with financial support from Creative New Zealand. Its movements are dedicated to the members of the New Zealand String Quartet.

   Chris Gendall, 2010

• Chris Gendall: Suite for String Quartet - downloadable PDF 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $20.50
  • • Quantity:

• Chris Gendall: Suite for String Quartet - hardcopy score 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $24.50
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Chris Gendall: Suite for String Quartet; video 

  Media on Demand | Embedded
  

• SOUNZtender Concert - 2010 

  DVD
  
  • Borrow