Sub Navigation

Search Music:

Search for music by typing a word or phrase in the box below or by selecting one or more categories from the list on the side.

Or search for products by selecting an option below, and typing a word or phrase in the box above

  • Scores
  • CDs and DVDs
  • Downloads
  • Education Resources

Denise Hulford  

Evolution

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1985
for narrator/tenor and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    2220;2221;timp,2perc (xylo, bell tree, cymbals, gong, bass drum, triangle, tambourine, woodblocks, guiro, snare drum, vibraphone);strs.
  • Programme Note

    This work for narrator, tenor and symphony orchestra highlights the impact on nature of man’s questionable progress. This idea is taken directly from Hone Tuwhare’s poem The Sea! To The Mountains! To The River which is the text for the soloist. Evolution is one continuous movement interspersed with nine vocal sections.

  • Availability

Kit Powell  

Father's Telescope

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1989
a playful music theatre piece for singer, speaker and tape about power and submission

Anthony Ritchie  

Five Dunedin Songs for Tenor and Guitar Opus 77

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1995

  • Programme Note

    Poems by Iain Lonie and Bernadette Hall, and commissioned by Tony Donaldson for performance by himself (guitar) and Robert Oliver (tenor) in 1997, with funding from Creative NZ. Originally from Dunedin, Bernadette studied Classics under Iain Lonie at Otago University. I have to thank two other Classicists with regard to the selection of these poems for setting: Andrew Barker who put me onto Iain’s poetry, and Gail Tatham who recommended Bernadette’s poems to me.

    Anthony Ritchie

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

No Other Heaven

Duration: 19' 00" Year: 1997
five songs for tenor and guitar

  • Programme Note

    In 1995 a volume of New Zealand love poetry was published under the title My Heart Goes Swimming. Instead of using one of the more conventional orderings of the poems, the editors arranged the poems chronologically according to when they believed the poets had written them. My selection of poems retained this organisation, although during composition of the cycle I substituted my original choice for the final poem with Robin Hyde’s Road’s End. The poets represented in the cycle are A.R.D. Fairburn, Mary Stanley, Brian Turner, Denis Glover and Robin Hyde.

    There is no real common thread which links the poems, other than their subject of love. All except the first speak directly to another person, whereas the first is descriptive of a loved one. The second poem speaks of the intimacy of love. It provides the cycle’s title in its last two lines: “I seek no other heav’n beyond your mortal face”. The third poem has the poet offering to give the reasons why love has flourished: to “…invite me to speak of the secrets I never knew I wanted to tell you”. The fourth poem uses the recurring line “I am bright with the wonder of you” to describe the various attractions of the loved one. The final song is a re-working of a piece which originally appeared as part of my Three Robin Hyde Impressions of 1993 for choir and piano. It seemed to fit here as a bittersweet farewell to love : “you have made summer golden, now you go”.

    No Other Heaven was commissioned by New Zealand guitarist Tony Donaldson with funding from Creative New Zealand whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged.

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Pao

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1981
for mezzo-soprano, piano and clarinet

  • Programme Note

    ‘Pao’ is the name given by Maori to two-lined epigrammatic songs which comment on a wide range of subjects such as love, war, politics or religion; often topical, often improvised. Most of the songs set here were collected in 1864 from Maori prisoners captured during the the land wars in the Waikato area south of Auckland. The couplets are not connected in any way except for the central group, for unaccompanied voice, concerning Pikeri, a character famous at the time for his escapades evading the police; in this instance, enforced separation during a love affair is charted.

    The English translations of these pao are used with the kind permission of the late Margaret Orbell, and come from her Maori Poetry, an introductory anthology (Heinemann, 1978).

    Pao was commissioned by the Northumberland-based Syrinx Trio, with financial assistance from Northern Arts; the first performance was given by Syrinx in Newcastle in 1981.

  • Availability

Dorothy Buchanan  

Seven Interpretations (on the Paintings of Rosemary Campbell)

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1979
for chamber septet

Dorothy Freed  

Sounds and Winds of Wellington

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 1988
pastiche or farce for narrator and chamber ensemble

Leonie Holmes  

The Journey

Duration: 15' 00" Year: 2005
for SATB choir (with female soloist) and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    orchestra inc. 3 perc., pf, hp. (perc. 1: crotales, glockenspiel, bongos, triangle, snare drum, 2 toms; perc. 2: suspended cymbal, xylophone, woodblock (low), Pacific log drum (low); perc. 3: vibraphone, tam tam, Pacific log drum (medium))
  • Programme Note

    This work for massed choir and orchestra was written for Uwe Grodd and the Manukau City Symphony Orchestra for the opening of the Genesis Theatre, TelstraClear Pacific Arts Centre, Manukau City. The piece aims to reflect both a spiritual journey, and a journey through time to a new place. It was inspired by two texts – a traditional Maori blessing, and a poem entitled The Journey written for the occasion by Tessa Stephens.

  • Availability