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Robbie Ellis  

#llamadrama

Duration: 12' 30" Year: 2010
for solo piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    Starting in a field close to Melbourne’s Western Ring Road, a llama lives a placid and slightly bored existence. Absent-mindedly picking at a chain-link fence, a gap appears: the animal can fit itself through and escape its confines. After a few cautious steps, it lurches forward and runs in sudden jerks. Making its way down a grassy hillside, it reaches the freeway crash barrier. Occupants of moving vehicles begin to notice the animal: “there’s a llama!” After a few tries, it successfully vaults the crash barrier and makes it onto the road itself. Vehicles whizz by and drivers honk their horns, but the llama is enjoying its freedom too much to be affected by them. Reports begin to reach news services: we hear a radio news theme and the growing noise of the Twitterverse.

    The din of chatter around Melbourne becomes overwhelming and little more than indistinguishable noise, so the llama retreats into its head and to its elated thoughts: “I’m free! I’m my own animal! This is my dream, I’m no longer bound by a chain-link fence! It’s a whole new world! There’s a smile on my face for the whole…”

    SQUEAL!! Its reverie is interrupted by an SUV with an absent-minded yet aggressive driver: the vehicle has to brake extremely suddenly to avoid hitting the llama, and misses it only by inches. Police have arrived on the scene and have begun to divert traffic. The llama becomes outnumbered to a greater and greater degree: there’s one last chance for escape, one tricky path to freedom, one last high-stakes roll of the “OOH TASTY TASTY LLAMA TREAT ON THE GRASSY BANK!! I LIKE TASTY LL… oh damn.”

    Thirty minutes later, in the same field close to the Western Ring Road, the llama is once again bored. Picking at the chain-link fence, there’s no chance of escape. The fence has been repaired, the gap closed, the llama’s life restored to its former boredom.

    More details here: http://www.robbie.co.nz/2012/12/09/llamadrama/

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David Hamilton  

A Birthday Offering

 Year: 2012
for SATB choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    When the 90th birthday of Betty Somerville was approaching, members of Auckland Choral were asked to sing at a special birthday gathering as a surprise. Betty had been a long-time member of the choir, maintaining a strong active involvement behind the scenes after retiring as a singing member.

    In searching for a suitable text for a piece to mark the occasion, I found that almost all birthday poetry fell into one of two categories – it was either tied to a specific age, or was incredibly saccharine and trite. I finally chanced upon Richard Wilbur’s “For K.R. on her Sixtieth Birthday” which contained more general sentiments and wishes. The K.R. of the title is the poet Kathleen Raine, and the reference to William Blake in the poem notes her devotion to that poet’s work.

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David Hamilton  

A Bright Light Still Shines

 Year: 2011
for SATB choir and piano

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Yvette Audain  

A Charleston Kick With Steel Caps

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2011
for saxophone quartet

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Yvette Audain  

A Charleston Kick With Steel Caps – alto sax quartet version

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2011
for four alto saxophones

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David Hamilton  

A Charm for Rain: He Tua I Te Rangi

 Year: 2013
for SSAA choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    While the word ‘charm’ is mostly used to mean something pleasing, it can also mean an action thought to have magical power, or the chanting of a magic word or verse – an incantation. It can also be used as a collective noun, usually of birds.

    This traditional text in Maori is a plea for the rain to depart and blue skies to appear. Preceding this, I have added several Maori terms for different types of rain – from misty rain through to drenching heavy rain. Rhythms in the work are often suggestive of typical Maori chant and kapahaka rhythms.

    “A Charm for Rain: He Tua I Te Rangi” was written for Cantare (Westlake Girls’ High School) and conductor Fiona Wilson.

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David Hamilton  

A Child Lay in a Little Crib

Duration: 02' 05" Year: 2012
for solo soprano, SSA choir and piano

Score Sample
Audio Sample
  • Programme Note

    This piece was originally the fifth movement of a short Christmas cycle (“Angels and Shepherds and Wise Men All”) was written in 2012 for the end of year concert by South Auckland Choral Society to be conducted by the composer. The concert included my school choir, St Mary’s Schola, and I was keen to write something that the combined forces (including the soloists) in the concert could sing together.

    The cycle doesn’t try to encapsulate the entire Christmas story, but focusses on those characters on the edge of the story – the angels, the shepherds and the wise man. In this piece, the characters who gathered around the infant Jesus are focussed on: the animals, the angels and the shepherds.

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Jodi Chen  

A Rainbow

Duration: 03' 12" Year: 2010
for children's choir

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Leonie Holmes  

A Tedious Brief Scene: Bottom's Dance

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2011
piano quartet

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Chris Watson  

about nothing...really

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 2010
for flute, B flat clarinet, guitar and cello

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION 2010: Stop writing dishonest programme notes.

    This work was conceived in the abstract and does not relate to human experience. It does not illustrate the composer’s state of mind, he having suddenly found himself awake in the middle of the night, unable to control his thoughts. While the experience of insomnia, especially when suffered over consecutive nights, can be physically and emotionally crippling, at times the abundance and insistence of multiple streams of unwanted thought (unruly Beta waves) can be, if not pleasurable, then certainly fascinating. This piece does not seek to illustrate this through music, nor does it sonically pose this question: why does the brain seize control of the consciousness and produce such a plethora of unwanted activity that sleep is made impossible and the host becomes miserable?

    At times, certain thoughts seem to somehow rise above the melee of insomniac thought and become quite focused and of seeming import, however inane these might seem in the cold light of day. This is not portrayed in the music by infrequent parings-down of texture and emergence of single, insistent motivic ideas. The music doesn’t describe how such thoughts soon get swallowed up as the jumble of thoughts returns and the victim adjusts position once again, glancing desperately at his or her clock radio and resolving hopelessly to try to make yet another attempt at deep breathing and sheep counting work.

    The composer could claim that the work is about these things, but that would be a lie; he no longer wishes to construct programme notes after the act of composition that conform to some conceivable extra-musical agenda.

    This version of this work is the first of a number of versions, with another swapping cello for viola and another as a solo guitar piece currently projected.

    The work was requested by Dylan Lardelli and is dedicated to this increasingly mythic musician.

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