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Gillian Whitehead  

Awa Herea (Braided Rivers)

Duration: 22' 00" Year: 1993
a song cycle for soprano and piano

Score Sample
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Gillian Whitehead  

Hineputehue

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2002
for string quartet and taonga puoro (Maori instruments)

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    Taonga puoro (improvised): poi awhioahio, hue puruhau, koauau ponga ihu, nguru, ororuarangi, ku, putatara, pu kaea, pumotomoto, pupu harakekek, tumutumu
  • Programme Note

    Hineputehue translates literally as the woman of the sound of the gourd, and she is the Maori goddess of peace. The work was written in 2001, at the time of President Bush’s State of the Union address shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan, and suggests the fragility rather than the celebration of peace, particularly in a pre-European environment.

    A number of instruments used in Hineputehue are made of gourds – the gourd, which carried food and water, is a symbol of peace. These include the poi awiowhio, a very quiet bird lure which is swung around the head, the tiny koauau ponga ihu or noseflute which ends the piece, the hue puru hau, a large gourd which is blown across its top opening and the gourd rattles played by the quartet. Two other wind instruments frequently made from gourds, the nguru and the ororuarangi, are also used. Other instruments are the putatara or conch shell trumpet, traditionally used for signalling, the pu kaea or war trumpet, a nguru niho paraoa or flute made from a whale’s tooth, the pumotomoto, associated with birth, and tumutumu (tapped percussion).

    There is a similarity between the stringed instruments of the quartet and the gourds, in that they are made from plant material, with sound emitted through sound holes. Another link is the ku, the only stringed instrument known to Maori, which is a small musical bow played like a jaws harp (jews harp) using the mouth as a resonating chamber. The idea of ororuarangi, which can be translated as spirit voice (or double stopping in a different context) has had some influence on this piece as in the parallel movement of the strings.

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Maria Grenfell  

Maui tikitiki a Taranga

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1998
concerto for flute and orchestra

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    solo flute; 022(bass)2; 2200; perc.; strings
  • Programme Note

    Maui Tikitiki a Taranga (“Maui formed in the topknot of Taranga”) was a demi-god found in the tribal myths of the Māori people of New Zealand.

    Maui, the fifth and youngest child, was born at the edge of the sea. His mother, Taranga, thought he was stillborn, and wrapped him in a tuft of her hair and set him adrift. He was cared for by the seaweed until a breeze blew him ashore, where he was saved and brought up by one of his great-ancestors.

    Maui was a great prankster. In one of his mischievous moods he decided to put out all the fires in the world. To bring fire back, he had to find Mahuika, the goddess of fire. He was awestruck upon meeting her, but decided to play a trick on her by taking fire from her fingernails one at a time, until she realised his game and threw fire to the ground, catching everything alight. Maui changed himself into a hawk to escape the flames, which singed his feathers. He called upon his ancestor to send rain and drench the fire, depriving Mahuika of her powers.

    Maui decided to defeat death by journeying to where the earth meets the sky, where lived his great-ancestress Hine nui te po (“Great Hine the Night”). He was accompanied by many birds, and told them his plan to enter the body of the sleeping Hine and so defeat death. The birds sat quietly trying not to laugh as Maui, in the form of a caterpillar, crawled towards Hine. Suddenly the fantail could be quiet no longer and laughed aloud, dancing about with delight. Hine awoke with a start, realised Maui’s trickery, and he was killed.

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Philip Dadson   Wayne Laird  

Pacific 3,2,1, Zero

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 1982
for voices percussion and invented instruments

Audio Sample
  • Instrumentation
    in part 1: tuned PVC pipes, metal chimes, roto-toms, voices, trom-tubes, spun drones, rattle-jackets and kerosene cans

    in part 2: voices, tuned wood, metal and PVC pipe lengths, 3 tenor slide trombones and 3 saxophones, soprano, alto, tenor and surf sticks
  • Programme Note

    Pacific 3-2-1-Zero (parts 1 and 2) is a work of protest against nuclear testing and waste dumping in Oceania. The structure is based on an image of isolated islands of acitivity connected by common waters whose currents now innocently carry nuclear contamination.

    The work takes place in the round, with the instruments in Part 1 arranged centrally to indicate the symbol for nuclear disarmament.

    The syllables heard in the first vocal section are taken from the names of individual islands within Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. These are mirrored and inverted in the same way as the rhythms in the music are. In a later vocal section the names of contaminated islands testing sites: Mururoa (France), Fangata’ufa (France), Christmas Island (UK/USA), Johnston Island (USA), Enewetak (USA), Bikini (USA) are sung, then shouted and drummed on tins to sound both lament and warning.

    Part 2, developed in 1983, expresses hope and is dedicated to the emerging force of solidarity among the people of the Pacific.

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