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Helen Fisher  

Bone of Contention

Duration: 1h 20' 00" Year: 1993
a dance work for mezzo-soprano and ensemble

Eve de Castro-Robinson  

Five Responses

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1989
For women's voices, male speaker, and mixed ensemble

  • Instrumentation
    for 3 sopranos, 3 altos, male speaker, alto fl, piccolo ,E-flat clarinet ,B-flat clarinet , bass-clarinet, horn, percussion (xylophone, timpani, 5 temple blocks, tambourine, 15 maracas, windchime, clicker,marimba, cymbals, balloons, pingpong balls) hp,pf. Extras: 13 balloons (with pins); brick (for piano pedal); 100 plus table tennis balls
  • Programme Note

    This work for mixed ensemble and female voices drew its inspiration from a series of paintings by Ken Robinson which were hung up behind the performers. “Drawing on Spanish texts from Pablo Neruda and St John of the Cross, Eve de Castro-Robinson has produced some wonderfully exotic music. Timbres are perfectly judged, from the vibrant exoticism of alto flute in Edged to the mysterious ceremony of horn and timpani in Black Drop and solo lines have a tremendous sense of tautness and cohesion.” William Dart, Music in NZ

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Ashley Heenan  

Jack Winter's Dream

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1958
incidental music for radio play for orchestra and four male soloists

Jonathan Besser  

Jean

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 1990
ballet in three acts for full orchestra, based on the life of Jean Batten

Peter Scholes (composer)  

Memory and Desire

Duration: 1h 02' 00" Year: 1997
soundtrack for orchestra from the film of the same name produced by Owen Hughes and directed by Niki Caro

Philip Norman  

Peter Pan

Duration: 1h 27' 00" Year: 1999
music for orchestra for a 3-act ballet

  • Programme Note

    This work was commissioned and premiered by The Royal New Zealand Ballet at the Westpac Trust St James Theatre, Wellington on February 27, 1999.

    Through most of 1998, the commissioned creative team including composer Philip Norman, choreographer Russell Kerr and designer Kristian Fredrikson worked on the adaptation of James M Barrie’s enchanting story. “We ate, slept and dreamt crocodiles, pirates and mermaids.”

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Anthony Ritchie  

Southern Journeys

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 2000
four movement orchestral work with video

  • Programme Note

    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.

  • Availability

Alex van den Broek  

Still Standing Silent

Duration: 50' 00" Year: 2009
for four musicians and a contemporary dancer

  • Instrumentation
    for B flat clarinet, tenor saxophone, percussion, contrabass - there is improvisation within set structures mostly for the tenor saxophone and contrabass
  • Programme Note

    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

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Anthony Ritchie  

The God Boy

Duration: 1h 30' 00" Year: 2004
An opera in two acts based on the novel 'The God Boy' by Ian Cross

Hugh Dixon  

Undertow at Oakura

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1988, r. 2004
dance theatre music for orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    (2)32(1)2(1)2; 4231; timp., perc.; strs.
  • Programme Note

    A moonlit scene on a lonely beach with long slow waves rising and receding. Gradually they become more intense; their inward and outward criss-crossing revealing a dangerous undertow. The music reaches a climax, and, certain motives representing two of the principal dancers are heard. The mysterious ‘chorus’ of sirens, of Part 1, is briefly heard, and the principal Siren appears moving front stage while the ‘chorus’ recedes. The principal male dancer now rises, and in a dream, and is drawn towards her. She leads him closer to the sea and they dance to the ‘sea’ and ‘siren’ music. As he tries to hold her, she again and again is allusive, and taunts him deeper and deeper until the sea engulfs him. He drowned and thrown back by the waves onto the beach.



    While living in retirement in Oakura I was given a synopsis by Val Deakin to write a ballet for her Dance Theatre in New Plymouth. She choreographed the second movement only and it was performed in New Plymouth with an ad hoc orchestra in 1989, myself conducting.

    Hugh Dixon, 22 November 2009

  • Availability