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John Rimmer  

Au

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2002
concerto for bass clarinet and ensemble

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Flute doubling alto flute; clarinet doubling bass clarinet; horn; bass trombone; percussion (3 tom toms, 2 bongos, 2 suspended cymbals, crotales, vibraphone, bell tree); cello; double bass and bass clarinet solo
  • Programme Note

    Au began as a series of musical reflections on the Auroroa with pitch material based on the name of bass clarinettist Andrew Uren whose initials provide the title. This title, ‘Au’ is also the abbreviation for ‘aurum’, the Latin word for gold. As I was composing I realised that I was dealing with golden qualities not only of the sounds in the piece but also of the musicians in the ensemble 175 East who would be giving its first performance. This was particularly the case with the soloist Andrew Uren whose adventurous bass clarinet playing has revolutionised the way in which composers in New Zealand think about the instrument.

    The work was commissioned by Andrew Uren with funding provided by Creative New Zealand and was first performed on 15 September 2002 at The Space, Wellington, by Andrew Uren and ‘175 East’ conducted by Hamish McKeich.

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Peter Scholes (composer)  

Bonk

 Year: 2008
for percussion and orchestra

  • Programme Note

    “Where do words go when the sound of them has died?” (Keri Hulme). With onomatopoeic words we can linger on the actual sound of the word and then the imagination considers how the sound was produced. There is a bewildering array of sounds and instruments available to the composer who writes music for percussion. I am one of those annoying people who, upon seeing an interesting object, immediately wants to hear what sort of noise it makes. In choosing the instruments for the soloist in Bonk I wanted to have a unified sound world and so made a decision to restrict the instruments to those made of metal. The result would be a piece with industrial and machine-like characteristics but there is also an element of fantasy and sounds which could adorn the world of Oberon and Titania. The sounds of metal percussion are full of variety and range from pitched instruments such as the vibraphone, glockenspiel, gongs, brake drums and cowbell through to those which make unpitched noise such as the cymbals, tam tam, spring coil, mark tree and rainstick. The orchestra in Bonk serve to enhance the soloist by adding to the attack or resonance of the percussion instruments, thereby giving the process of composition much in common with sound design. The orchestral writing also utilises the sound spectrum from clearly pitched or melodic music through to clusters where the priority is noise rather than harmony. Bonk explores density of sound. The thin transparent music of the glockenspiel solo contrasts with densely layered structures. The rhythms in Bonk are built on the simple repeating idea of short-long-short-long. In jazz this is called “swing”. In Bonk different degress of wing are explored by varying the ratio between the short and long duration and then these are layered against a common pulse. The strict notation creates an amalgam of independent tempos.

    I would like to finish those note with two quotations. Firstly, the words of Quince iin his prologue to the play within a play from Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespear: “If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, but with good will. To show our simple skill, that is the true beginning of our end.” And from Mondy Python team – “Ah, I see you have the machine that goes ping!”

    Peter Scholes

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Michael Vinten  

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2006
for alto saxophone and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    212(both dbl bass cl.)2; 2210; timp., celeste, harp; solo alto saxophone; strings
  • Programme Note

    The Concerto was written in January 2006 as fulfilment of a long standing promise to write a piece for saxophonist Simon Brew. What began, in concept, as a modest “concertino” grew into a five movement “grand” concerto of nearly 30 minutes, which makes it, according to Simon, one of the longer concertos in the Alto Saxophone repertoire; I’m still not quite sure how it happened, it just kept on growing.

    The Concerto was commissioned by the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta, is dedicated to Simon, and was premiered in May 2006. The first two movements, including some revisions, were later presented at the NZSO-SOUNZ Readings on 6 November 2006.

    The first movement is an accompanied cadenza for the saxophone which outlines the major thematic material for the concerto. This movement reoccurs, in modified form, as the central episode of the last movement. The second movement is in traditional concerto sonata form. The Concerto unashamedly follows classical structures throughout. Avant-garde it ain’t!

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Eric Biddington  

Concerto for Clarinet and Strings

 Year: 2006

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Edwin Carr  

Concerto for Oboe

 Year: 2003
piano reduction score for oboe and piano of the concerto arr. by Geoffrey Grey

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Eric Biddington  

Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 2007
for oboe and string orchestra

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Gareth Farr  

Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra 'Celebrate Wellington'

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2004
for four percussion soloists and orchestra

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Eric Biddington  

Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra

Duration: 16' 18" Year: 2007
for viola and string orchestra

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Michael Williams  

Convergence - Triple Concerto

 Year: 2007
for violin, cello, piano and orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    2222; 22; timp.; perc.; str. with solo violin, solo cello, and solo piano
  • Programme Note

    The title of this work Convergence, occurred to me only after it was complete and it relates primarily to the second movement, which opens with a prelude that introduces somewhat pointillistic musical elements that eventually “converge” into a Passacaglia.

    There are three main sections in this work. The first two could be described as “movements” and the third a reprise of the Fantasy but substantially altered. Much of this piece is composed using a system of note clusters in a somewhat tonal environment, but Passacaglia inhabits more familiar territory.

    The two cadenzas in this work are for the solo strings, the cello cadenza is in the first movement and the violin’s is at the end of the Passacaglia. It seemed unnecessary and perhaps arbitrary to write a piano cadenza – there being a number of occasions where the piano has fairly virtuosic solo passages.

    Michael Williams

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John Rimmer  

Europa

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2002
concerto for brass band and orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation

    Orchestra:(1)2,2,2(1),2(1); 4331; timp., perc. (3), hp; strings. (Percussion: small and large suspended cymbals, tam tam, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, tubular bells, snare drum, 2 bongos, 3 tom toms, bass drum.)
    Brass Band: sop cornet, solo cornet, 1st cornet, 2nd cornet, 3rd cornet, flugelhorn, tenor horn, baritone, tenor trombone, bass trombone, E flat euphonium, E flat bass, B flat bass
  • Programme Note

    In composing this concerto I recognise two contrasting musical cultures within the European artistic tradition. The Brass Band represents what I call a ‘closed’ musical system portrayed by its standardised instrumentation heard to great effect in its stirring marches, sonorous hymn playing, contest pieces and arrangements of popular and show music, while the orchestra with its dazzling array of many instrumental colours, its flexible instrumentation and its potential for pushing musical boundaries, represents an ‘open’ musical system. I wanted also to exploit the virtuosic capacity of the brass band as a concerto soloist and to celebrate through this work the unity and solidarity amongst brass musicians.

    Europa is a one movement work in five main sections which alternate slow atmospheric music with a fast and rhythmic style. The latter is heard in the many rapid passages which switch from band to orchestra and vice versa. Notable also is the relationship between the band and the orchestra particularly in the cadenzas for the brass band followed by the orchestral brass.

    I was spurred into composing this work after reading about Europa, one of the large moons of the planet Jupiter first seen by Galileo in 1610 and named after a goddess of Greek mythology. Such thoughts were instrumental in generating my first musical ideas, for instance the name ‘Europa’ is represented by a six note melody heard throughout the work. However, my initial thoughts about Europa receded as I explored and developed the musical material. ‘Europa’ was commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia. The work was first performed by the Dalewool Auckland Brass and the Auckland Philharmonia conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya on 13 June 2002 in the Auckland Town Hall.

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