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David Hamilton  

An Offering for Parihaka

Duration: 14' 00" Year: 1988
for traditional Maori instruments (taonga puoru) and string orchestra

Gillian Whitehead  

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Duration: 30' 00" Year: 1982
for mezzo and chamber orchestra

Edwin Carr  

Poems for Piano and Orchestra

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1988
for piano and orchestra

Jenny McLeod  

The Emperor and the Nightingale

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 1985, r. 2010
for narrator and orchestra

Lyell Cresswell  

The Pumpkin Massacre

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 1987
for strings

  • Instrumentation
    twelve solo strings: 4 violins I, 3 violins II, 2 violas, 2 cellos and double bass
  • Programme Note

    Te Puoho, friend and ally of Te Rauparaha, invited the Rangitane chief Mahuri and his people to a feast at Kukutauaki in return for previous kindnesses. Kukutauaki stood in the middle of an area hostile to the Rangitane people. On his way to the feast Mahuri was warned of the danger of entering territory controlled by the powerful and dangerous Te Rauparaha whereupon he replied: “It is the boast of Te Puoho that he will not have his forehead smeared with blood.” After the feast at which a new kind of food, the pumpkin, was introduced, the guests were invited back to Maimea, at the mouth of the Waikanae River, and massacred – most likely at the prompting of Te Rauparaha. This work was composed in 1987, commissioned and first performed by the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Anthony Jennings. It has been reviewed as, “sheer instrumental drama launched on a sea of seething, trilling strings.”

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