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Arapatiki was commissioned by Stephen De Pledge as one of a series of Landscape preludes, and received its first performance in the Wigmore Hall, London, in January, 2004. Arapatiki translates (from the Maori language) as ‘the way of the flounder’, and is the ancient name of the sand flats in front of my house at Harwood, near Dunedin. The piece has something to do with the advance and retreat of the tide across the flats, where many species of sea and water birds spend much of the day – an ever-varying water-scape. The opening idea is based on the song of the korimako or bellbird.

• Whitehead: Arapatiki; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Arapatiki; computer-set 

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• Landscape Preludes  Year: 2011 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Arapatiki; video 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Various Works 

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• Stephen de Pledge - Landscape Preludes  

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• Stephen de Pledge plays Arapatiki by Gillian Whitehead 

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• Tuhonohono: Music by Gillian Whitehead 

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• An Interview with Gillian Whitehead 

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• Stephen de Pledge: Three Landscape Preludes  Year: 2004 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Arapātiki CD  Year: 2012 

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Ecstasy of Flight captures a moment in the life of a child who longed for a companion in her isolated life in the precise middle of nowhere. She was visited by a powerful dream, of wings, the curling of the wind in the cloud-tops, the perfect peace of the blue land of the sun, and the shape of the world as one great, majestic song. That was the moment in her life from which she could look back later as an adult composer and say that it all began.

• Goss: Ecstasy of Flight; computer-set 

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• Goss: Ecstasy of Flight; computer-set 

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• Thomas Goss: Ecstasy of Flight 

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• Statham: Flora; computer-set 

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• Statham: Flora; computer-set 

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• Statham: Flora; computer-set 

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• In Retrospect - Quintets, Quartets and Trios by Keith Statham 

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This piece, for four part unaccompanied choir or vocal quartet, is a setting of Isaiah’s vision of God, which is found in Isaiah chapter 6. It was written for Syntony vocal quartet from Adelaide.

• Maclean: In the year that King Uzziah Died; facsimile 

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• Maclean: In the year that King Uzziah Died; facsimile 

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• Clare Maclean: Osanna 

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A karanga is a call which begins the Maori ceremony or welcome, the powhiri. Traditionally the karanga is performed by the women. It is an indication that the visitors (the ‘manuhiri’) should begin to move forward on the marae.

“The start of he karanga indicates to a visitor that they are free to approach their hosts across the marae atua (sacred space directly in front of the meeting house). The call also clears a spiritual path for the ancestros of both the visitor and host and meet and partake in the ceremonial uniqueness of the powhiri.” (from www.newzealand.com)

The karanga also includes acknowledgment of ancestors and may allow the visitors to identify where they have come from.

Although my work picks up on some of these traditional karanga elements, it is not intended to be a representation of an actual karanga or powhiri. The text is drawn from several sources, and includes some typical traditional karanga calls. In the music, the female voices represent the hosts and the male voices represent the visitors, although at times (for purely musical reasons) this distinction is blurred.

The women’s text is founded on the call of “Haere mai!” (“Welcome!”), and the men’s text of “Karanga mai!” (“Call!”). THese two phrases recur throughout the work, often underpinning other texts. Although the two groups often call back and forth to each other, at times the two groups also perform together, super-imposing their respective texts. Towards the end of the work the two groups come together and the work ends with all singers presenting the same text.

Musically, the work begins by using rhythmic ideas which suggest traditional chant. No actual traditional chants are used however. A feature of a karanga is the unbroken line of sound which passes from singer to singer. Much of the remainder of the work uses a rich palette of tonal harmonies often moving slowly from chord to chord. The piece includes a part for conch shell player, an instrument also associated with calling to visitors and welcoming them.

Karanga was written for The Graduate Choir and their conductor Terence Maskell

David Hamilton

• Hamilton: Karanga; computer set 

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• Hamilton: Karanga; computer set  Year: 2005 

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• A Sound Came from Heaven  Year: 2007 

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In the book Consciousness Explained Daniel Dennett convincingly argues that there is nothing about human consciousness, emotion or experience that cannot be encompassed by a purely physical, biological and mechanical explanation. We do not need to refer to some ‘soul’ or ’mind’s eye’ to describe our experiences. We are, in short, machines – just very clever machines.

These three short miniatures push the performer to the limits, yet, paradoxically, a ‘human’ reading of the score still brings to the surface a more energetic, compelling and arguably musical performance than a merely mechanical rendition.

• Norris: Machine Noise; computer set 

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• Norris: Machine Noise; computer set 

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• Landscape Preludes  Year: 2011 

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• Michael Norris: Machine Noise; video 

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• Stephen de Pledge - Landscape Preludes  

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• Stephen de Pledge plays Machine Noise by Michael Norris 

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In September 2007 at the University of Auckland, I attended the launch of Spectrum 4, a book of short stories. These stories were the end-product of 24 writers’ work in a third-year English course, ‘Writing the Short Story’, convened and tutored by Witi Ihimaera the previous year. The first story in the book was Leila Austin’s Shadow People.

Leila’s writing – particularly the evocations and contrasts of shadow vs light; the harshly real vs the safely imaginary; and a flighty imaginary companion called Maeve – inspired me to set this piece for solo piano. The solitary nature of the piano and its evocative qualities of shade and shadow suits it, in my mind, to accompanying past recollections.

To accompany the piano part, Leila and I pared down and paraphrased her original story to a small number of lines, which I recorded her speaking. The words on tape come from a disembodied storyteller in the present remembering her past. The piano part accompanies and complements the speaker’s thoughts and memories.

At the root of this piece is the interval of the second, which is found in two guises – major and minor. The major second opens and closes the piece. While it often has dissonant qualities, here it is not strongly dissonant and is used in a very still and suspended state. This interval represents the idea of shadow and the comfort the storyteller found (and finds) in it.

The interval’s other guise is the minor second, a much more jarring harmony. This evokes light, the opposite of shadow, and in particular the sharp fluorescent light of Bars 59-66. Towards the end of the piece there is interplay between the minor and major seconds, and there are even places where the minor second is a consonant interval (e.g. Bars 77-80).

• Ellis: Maeve; computer-set 

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• Ellis: Maeve; computer-set 

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• Ellis: Maeve; tape part 

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• Robbie Ellis: Maeve; audio 

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• Robbie Ellis: Maeve 

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• Robbie Ellis: Maeve 

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Modern Tango is one of five tangos, Tango Cinco, for solo piano. Sydney dance teacher Ian Murphy tells how the Argentinean tango began in the ghettos of Buenos Aires, with dance steps grouped in 5s and 7s which worked across the music’s phrasing. However, when taken to Europe, extra dance steps were invented to fit into groups of 8s. I heard a modern tango, with its faster tempo, performed at Darling Harbour in Sydney one Sunday afternoon, and this Modern Tango explores the grouping of 5 within this faster tempo. The piece employs voice leading, shifting harmonies and a long melody. The first performance was given at Sydney and Nimbin (November 2006) in which two composers, Michael Hannan and I, played our own piano works.

• Blom: Modern Tango; computer-set 

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• Blom: Modern Tango; computer-set 

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• Blom: The Whale's Song and Modern Tango 

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Pale Sun over Cold Land uses as its form an improvisatory melody over a simple, descending chord progression. In the long middle solo, elements of contemporary Western and Eastern musics are combined in synchronicity, bringing the emotional contour of the overall work toward a close with yearning and optimism.

• Goss: Pale Sun Over Cold Land; computer-set 

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• Goss: Pale Sun Over Cold Land; computer-set 

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• Thomas Goss: Pale Sun Over Cold Land 

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• Biddington: Two Partitas (Nos. 3 and 4); computer-set 

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• Eric Biddington: Mad Music 

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• Eric Biddington - Partita Nr.3 

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