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Anton Killin  

'Another Day' Miniatures

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2008
electroacoustic

  • Programme Note

    This suite of short pieces aims to juxtapose several different compositional styles relevant to the medium of electroacoustic music. Most of the source material is drawn from Allan Thomas’ Karanga Voices audio library, MTM’s open source samples, recordings of Kylie Nesbit’s bassoon and viola sounds, and recordings of local Wellington rock band Keller Kinder of which I am a member.

    ‘Another Day’ Miniatures was premiered at the Adam Art Gallery in Wellington at ‘Karanga Voices’ – a concert celebrating both the Karanga Voices audio library project of Allan Thomas (which documents New Zealand heritage in sound, after which the concert is named) and five generations of electroacoustic composers in Wellington.

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Daniel Stabler  

'faccee'

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2002
four movement work for english horn and string quintet

  • Instrumentation
    cor anglais, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
  • Programme Note

    ‘faccee’ is composed as a set of loosely related, programmatic movements which portray different moods through the day. ‘faccee’ is intended as a lighter work of chamber music with elements of mystery, humor, charm and satire.

    ‘Dawn’ begins the work slowly, with the darkness and solitude of morning blossoming full fruit into daylight, then relaxing into the day. Movement two, ‘Boogie’, quickens the pace and is akin to experiences while walking the streets of the city. The further one travels, the more activity one encounters until reaching the heart of the city, where a rousing canon surrounds you with people and congested traffic. Then, suddenly, you arrive at your destination and with one last exclamation are in the door.

    ‘Daydream’ is a brief visit into the realm of nostalgia and sentiment, with a pleasant, recurring melody in the english horn and violin. What better for a finale than an old-fashioned ‘galop’ ? This ‘galop’ is, rather, a musical pun on the Viennese version. The ‘Galop’ gives way to the ‘Trio Satirico’ which pokes fun at traditional trios with a duple/triple reconfiguration of 9/8; making for a gawky feel. Then on to the ‘Finale’ where themes from earlier in the day are revisited in a whirlwind finish.

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Michael Norris  

14 Islands

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2005
for flute/bass flute, percussion, and prepared harp

Jack Body  

14 Stations

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2000
for amplified pianist

Anthony Ritchie  

24 Preludes

Duration: 49' 00" Year: 2002
preludes for solo piano

  • Programme Note

    It is impossible not to feel inspired when playing some of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Debussy’s two books of preludes, or Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues. As a composer I wanted to make a small mark of respect to these greats with some dedications. I have also taken a cue from Bach and Shostakovich and included contrapuntal forms within these preludes. While not wanting to restrict myself to the form of a fugue, there are several preludes which are close in spirit to fugues: Nos.17 and 19 for instance, are what I would call my ‘prelugues’. There is also a passacaglia (No.16) which owes a debt to Shostakovich. I have conceived these pieces as a unified whole. Within them I have attempted to cover a whole variety of characters and moods, from the improvisational and experimental to the lyrical and gentle, from the wild and gestural to the calm and peaceful, from the quirky and ‘black’ to the light and sunny, from the depressive to the resolved. The extensive technical planning and preparation behind these pieces has been fun for me as the composer, but in the end it is the sound and musical expression that matters. I would like to think this voyage of discovery has led to something new and interesting to listen to.

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Maurice Faulknor  

3 by 3

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2005
for piano

Ray Twomey  

5 Pansonics (Opus 28)

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2001
for carillon

Dorothy Ker  

[...and...11]

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2002, r. 2006
for twelve players

  • Instrumentation
    alto flute/piccolo; clarinet in A; bass clarinet/small bamboo chimes to hang on music stand; horn in F/small bamboo chimes to hang on music stand; bass trombone/small bamboo chimes tohang on music stand; percussion: 2 suspended cymbals, hihat, sizzle cymbal, 3 toms, medium bass drum, 3 woodblocks, three sets of maracas, bamboo or wood chimes; harp; violin;viola; cello and bass
  • Programme Note

    In this work, cycles of accumulation and decay move in broad wave-like gestures, recalling the sea. I am fascinated by the potency of the tiniest gesture, syllable or phoneme. Having no ‘meaning’ in itself, the syllable ‘and’ is weightless and transient, yet holds enormous power to link ideas; to create anticipation/momentum. It is like a wave bearing thought towards utterance. …and…11 was composed for, and is dedicated to, Chachi and Lontano.

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Dorothy Ker  

[...and...1]

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2003
for clarinet in A

  • Programme Note

    This piece was composed in close collaboration with Andrew Sparling whose facility in using quarter-tone fingerings made it possible to experiment with these to produce music which exploits their timbral and colouristic qualities. It was stimulated by a return visit, following a seven-year absence, to New Zealand in 2002. Imagery of the sea is strong within its musical/poetic discourse and the piece is broadly structured over a cycle of seven ‘intensity waves’. The title is shared by an earlier work […and… 11] for 12 players (composed for Lontano in 2002). The link between these contrasting works is the morphology of the wave, encapsulated as a sonic envelope of aspirate (a) – resonant (n) – explosive (d), along with the extremes of space that are characterised in the music by extreme contrasts in dynamic, register and motion. Sparling has performed and recorded the piece in a number of different realisations. In April it was performed by Australian player Richard Haynes at the TURA International Festival in Perth and broadcast by ABC.

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Alex Taylor  

[f]at[on]ality

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 2009, r. 2010
for piano

  • Programme Note

    The title itself is a play on the words “fatality” and “tonality”, the two words and concepts colliding to form “[f]at[on]ality”. Similarly, the music presents two contrasting musical languages that intersect and compete violently for dominance. The first of these is a tonal language, represented by various types of (major/minor etc.) chords derived from four constituent triads of a twelve-tone row. The first phrase presents this language in conflict with itself, collapsing two triads into a hexachord at the punctuation points of the phrase. These chords then begin to extricate and extrapolate themselves, – beginning in the right hand at the start of the second phrase – under which the twelve-tone row (presented in the accelerating and decelerating lines of the first phrase) is fragmented and rhythmically manipulated. This twelve-tone row represents the second musical language, that is, a quasi-serial atonal language that is subjected to transformation by inversion, retrograde, multiplication etc. While on one level the music is concerned with the intersection and interdependence of these languages, it is also concerned with the dramatic consequences of that collision. The dynamic and rhythmic frameworks are somewhat extreme, providing a constantly surging, climactic structure that, in the end, resolves ambivalently. The inspiration for the piece came from a poetic doodle, reprinted below:

    con.vent.shun

    wanting to dis / dys
    place / figure / function

    this fatal tonality
    tonal fatality
    total finality
    final totality

    this [f]at[on]al entity

    cacophonic / catatonic
    coughed up and codified

    maybe some kind of
    superficial facticity / deep fiction
    palimpsestic / incestuous

    stasis / stagnation
    repetitious f[l/r]agellation
    sheer f[l/r]agrance

    and you can’t get out

    or in

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