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In 1990 I attended the launch of Cilla McQueen’s new book Berlin Diary. This diary made a big impression on me, initially because it brought back memories of my own trip to Europe. I also liked the brilliant mixing of poetic and prosaic styles, and the vivid descriptions of people and places. Something else that impressed me was the strong contrast between the inhuman political situation in Berlin (the wall was still up) and the natural, peaceful beauty of Dunedin, New Zealand (Cilla’s and my own home town). A few months later the Aramoana tragedy (where a deranged gunman killed 13 people – Aramoana is a remote seaside township at the end of the Otago peninsula) changed that around. Cilla’s beautiful, almost ecstatic centrepiece in the dairy “O Aramoana” now took on a terrible subtext, and it seemed as if the inhumanity of Berlin had come to the remote beach community. A year later, the Berlin wall finally came down, and the unification of East and West Germany became a reality.

When Judy Bellingham approached me in 1991 to write a song cycle for her, I immediately wanted to set extracts from the Berlin Diary, to capture these layers of dramatic historical irony along with the essence of a marvellous text. In reality I was able to only set a fraction of the diary to music, and hence the title of my work – Berlin Fragments (which I would also like to think suggests the breaking of the Berlin wall into bits). After talking to Cilla about the work, I decided to make “O Aramoana” the heart of the work, around which somewhat shorter texts are clustered. Sections are often linked by a recurrent chord in the bottom of the piano (the dyad E-F), which I have imagined as a tombstone in musical terms. Framing the work are brief sections which convey the flight to and from Berlin (the “green below” being an unmistakable reference to a return to New Zealand).

The 23 minutes of this song cycle run continuously.

• Ritchie A.: Berlin Fragments; facsimile 

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• Bellingham, Dennis, Rawson: NZ vocal music  Year: 2006 

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Fanfare for Orchestra was commissioned as part of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence programme to open a special concert to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. This short work for large orchestra follows an A-B-A structure with the archetypal brass fanfare is framed by the “bustling crowd” analogy of the other orchestral sections with much jazz-like syncopation.

• Keay: Fanfare for Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Keay: Fanfare for orchestra; computer-set 

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• Nigel Keay: Fanfare for Orchestra; audio 

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• Nigel Keay: Fanfare for Orchestra; audio 

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• Nigel Keay - Various Works 

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• Nigel Keay: Works 

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• Works for Orchestra: Farr, Blake, Keay, Bowater 

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• APO Commissions of NZ Music 1995 - 1997 

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• Meridan: Firecracker; computer-set 

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• NZ Women Composers Vol. 2 

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• Fanfares for a New Millennium  Year: 2000 

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• Psathas: Manurewa Fanfare; computer set 

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• John Psathas: works 

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Based on the 1969 moon landing and Jules Verne’s novel From the Earth to the Moon the premiere of this short opera was described in The Listener by Alan Wells as an “unclouded crowd-pleaser.” He went on to say, “Stuart Hoar’s libretto for this entertaining romp brought together Apollo astronauts and moon-stranded fictional characters from Jules Verne, while Ritchie’s tuneful score gleefully quoted Tchaikovsky and patriotic Americana to underline (and undermine) the action.”

• Ritchie A.: The Eagle has Landed; computer-set 

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• Ritchie A.: The Eagle has Landed; computer-set 

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• Ritchie A.: The Eagle has Landed; computer-set 

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• Pattrick: Y2K; computer-set 

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Y2k Pacemaker is an attempt to reflect some of the increasingly frenzied apprehension associated with the coming millennium, and more specifically, the “year 2000 computer bug”. Whether computer failures will cause a slight inconvenience or be a major disruption to life seems largely a matter for conjecture. However, I find the escalating alarm (sometimes exacerbated by scaremongers) and often ensuing bizarre reactions a fascinating aspect of our psychological makeup. The main idea behind the work is a measured increase in tempo which culminates in some frenetic activity. The musical texture incorporates ordinary scalic movement and has been derived from a simple octatonic scale. (The computer on which I wrote this work is ‘year 2000 compliant’ !) I would like to thank the Auckland Philharmonia for the opportunity to write “Y2k Pacemaker” and have long admired the orchestra’s commitment to New Zealand music.

• Cree Brown: Y2K Pacemaker; computer-set 

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• Fanfares for a New Millennium  Year: 2000 

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