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The title of this work may seem unexpected as there is no ‘Concert Grosso No. 1’ in my list of works! However I’ve always considered my 1985 work for strings and percussion ‘Well Done, Mister Bach’ to be a concerto grosso. That work features the leaders of all five string parts as a ‘concertante’ group. In a more traditional Baroque manner, this work features just the leaders of the first and second violin and cello sections as the soloists. My intention with the work was to write something in the manner of a Baroque concerto grosso, drawing inspiration from typical styles of the period. Mixed in are my own musical and compositional preferences, so that in the end the piece might be described as ‘Baroque meets minimalism’. I finally gave into the temptation to give the three movements titles. The title, ‘Prelude’, of the first movement is a little ironic as it is longer than the remaining two movements combined. The second movement, ‘Air on a Shoestring’ suggests a rather brief, perhaps truncated air, in this case, a piece which fails to return to its home key. The final movement is in the manner of a Baroque fugue, I knew that university paper would finally come in useful one day!. ‘Concert Grosso No. 2’ was commissioned by the Music Department of St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland, and follows a commission from them the previous year for ‘Whisper to me’ (for choir, strings and percussion).

• Hamilton: Concerto Grosso No. 2; computer-set 

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• Hamilton: Concerto Grosso No.2; computer-set 

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Jangeran seeks to bridge the musical gap between East and West: a Balinese melody is appropriated by the Western orchestra and is recast in a range of Western contexts. At various points a gamelan ensemble, embedded in the Western orchestra, emerges and reasserts ownership of the musical source materials while at other times the two bodies combine to explore new and strange syntheses of culture, movement and soundworlds.

Jangeran was commissioned and premiered by the Nusantara Symphony Orchestra in Jakarta in May 2005, conductor Edward Van Ness, with further performances in Osaka and Tokyo, Yogyakarta and Jakarta.

• Watson: Jangeran; computer-set 

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• Watson, C.: Jangeran; computer set 

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When Silencio Ensemble asked me to write the original piece, it was suggested that I write something inspired by or relevant to Canterbury – one possibility being a piece inspired by the landscape. In a funny kind of way, Mad Cow-Farmer’s Disease is inspired by the landscape – going to a Canterbury river and seeing the signs that say “Do Not Swim” or another where cows are loose in the riverbed and cow shit is all over the place.

It is inspired by dry riverbeds surrounded by farms with pumps constantly irrigating the land – the premise being that any ounce of water that makes it to the sea is wasted. These same farmers, self-titled “environmentalists,” use hypothetical science to justify their wanton destruction of the natural environment.

• Chris Adams: Mad Cow Farmers' Disease (Jazz Band version) - hardcopy score & parts 

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• Chris Adams: Mad Cow Farmers' Disease (Jazz Band version) - downloadable PDF 

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A medicine bundle is part of the traditional teachings and practices of the First Nations peoples of North America. The title of the first Medicine Bundle piece, which I wrote as one of the many invited composers worldwide to contribute a piece for pianist Ananda Sukarlan’s Concerts for Bali commemorating the Bali bombing of October 2002, was my response to an article published in the Toronto Star, where an elder of the Six Nations Reserve of southern Ontario spoke of a “medicine bundle” found within each of us; a place of healing and transformation which we can tap into in times of strife and need. I envisaged the bundle in the three previous Medicine Bundle pieces as consisting of a bundle of notes from which the performer(s) can freely bring their own sensitivities, experiences and responses to the work’s realisation. Unlike my other medicine bundle pieces however, this Medicine Bundle does not allow for different realisations of the score – instead, the focus is on the different voices “speaking together” in a common tongue.

‘Medicine Bundle’ was first performed in a version for solo piano by Ross Carey at the Dunedin Composers’ Group concert in August 2005.

• Carey: Medicine Bundle (No. 4); facsimile 

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These three pieces were composed as homage to the great music of the baroque era. They represent conservatively modern interpretations of venerable old musical forms.

• Twomey: Music for Harpsichord (Opus16b); computer-set 

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• Twomey: Music for Harpsichord; computer-set 

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• Reflections - Music Composed by Ray Twomey 

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• Ray Twomey: A Child is Born  Year: 1999 

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• A New Dawning  Year: 1999 

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Seven little melodies for a melody instrument, concluding with a Gigue.

Several of these pieces received their first performance in a lunchtime recital of contemporary pieces for solo bass clarinet given by Andrew Uren at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in October 2000.

• Carey: Seven Little Pieces; facsimile 

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When Helen initially asked me to write her a lever harp piece, one option that arose in discussion was that of using a loop pedal. This created many possibilities for the piece, but also created limits in the way I could use certain material. After the expansive opening, Strata uses multiple layers built up of patterns played over top of each other. The constantly repeating riffs drive the piece, and the melodic material weaves around this, sometimes in sync and sometimes purposely against the underlying patterns. Strata was written while I was Mozart Fellow at the University of Otago in 2011.

• Chris Adams: Strata - downloadable PDF 

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• Chris Adams: Strata - hardcopy score 

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• Helen Webby: Pluck  Year: 2012 

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‘Voices of Tane’ (1976) was the first piece I wrote on my first return to New Zealand after nine years away. It was written for my sister, Joyce Whitehead, to play at the Registered Music Teachers’ Conference in Auckland that year. A series of seven short piano pieces, written with children in mind (although some of them are difficult for children to play), was written for my godson, Kit Boyes. There is little to say about the pieces themselves except that the last repeats the first, the third has to do with birdsong, the fifth with the wind, and the sixth consists of nine ideas that the pianist plays in whatever sequence she or he wishes.

• Whitehead: Voices of Tane; computer-set 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Voices of Tane; audio 

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A one movement work composed for the Silencio Ensemble for the Canterbury Composers Series.


This piece in three main sections features the piano, saxophone and flute respectively, each section is derived from similar material but differs in its texture. The two outer sections are cloudy, sustained and expressive. The middle section is more jazz like with the ensemble playing together behind an improvised saxophone solo. The piano divides the sections with strong forceful material to insert depth and weight into a piece which has a very refined, reserved and obscure quality much like being on a canvas.

• van den Broek: White and Pink on Light Red; computer-set 

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• van den Broek: White and Pink on Light Red; computer-set 

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• Alex van den Broek: White and Pink on Light Red 

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• Silencio - New Music Ensemble - Canterbury Composers 2008 

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