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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.

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Philip Norman  

The Ballad of Settler McGee

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 1996
arranged for symphonic band

  • Programme Note

    The Ballad of Settler McGee was commissioned by Concert FM in 1990, New Zealand’s sesqui-centennial year, for closing concert of the World Youth Festival in Christchurch, September 2nd, 1990.

    The work was originally written for the combined forces of the New Zealand National Youth Orchestra, the New Zealand Youth Choir, the National Youth Concert Band, the New Zealand National Youth Pipe Band, the New Zealand Youth Jazz Orchestra, the New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Brass Band, and a competition-wimming Maori ensemble and rock band, all conducted by John Hopkins.

    Though Settler McGee is a fictitious character, his ballad is based on the life of an early pioneering figure. Of Celtic origin, this settler emigrated to New Zealand, through Hobart, in the early 1830s. He lived with and married into a Maori tribe, was present at the sighing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and fought in several early wars. He played a prominent part in negotiating the ensuing peace and in promoting understanding between the Maori and Pakeha people. With deliberate symbolism, our Settler McGee died on the day New Zealand gained Dominion status.

    This arrangement and revision of The Ballad of Settler McGee for concert band was commissioned by the Christchurch Youth Symphonic Band, conductor Mark Hodgkinson, with funding provided by Creative New Zealand and completed in 1996. It was premiered by the Auckland Wind Orchestra, conducted by Peter Thomas, on 8 August 1998 in the Aotea Centre, Auckland, as the winning entry in the 1998 Sky City Community Trust Auckland Wind Orchestra Composer’s award.

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Gillian Whitehead  

the improbable ordered dance

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 2000
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3334, 4331, hp, pf, timp, perc. 3 players (resaresa (rainstick), 7 roto-toms, xylophone, vibraphone, claves, metal chimes, tamtam,bass drum,tapped stones, 5 suspended cymbals, flax bundle, 5 woodblocks, guiro) strs.
  • Programme Note

    In his 1974 collection ‘The lives of a Cell’, Lewis Thomas wrote a memorable essay devoted to the spectrum of sound made by all living creatures. He believes that as well as producing sounds in every possible way to send messages to their own kind, all creatures have the urge to make some kind of music. The rhythmic sounds emitted by all creatures might, Lewis suggests ‘be the recapitulation of something else – an earliest memory, a score for the transformation of inanimate random matter in chaos into the improbable ordered dance of living forms.’ It was this essay, together with my fascination in the rediscovery of the part of Auckland I knew as a young child, that have shaped this piece.

    The basis of the piece is the twelve possible three-note groups which function to form molecular structures – harmonic, textural, gestural, melodic – some simple, some complex, often symmetrical. The piece could be regarded as part of a classical tradition, in that it focuses primarily on balance of pitch and orchestration rather than on gesture or programmatic elements, and places the instrumental writing well within the range of the instruments rather than exploiting their extremes.

    The improbable ordered dance is in a single movement and begins with a ghostly chant-like melody over a drone; this recurs in different forms several times during the piece. A transition section based on transformed sounds of nocturnal birds leads to a metrically free ‘dawn chorus’. The following chorale-like passages and the rapid sections that follow are part of a restless upward-moving continuum which can never settle nor ever finish. The later sections of the piece recycle, combine and finally dissipate the earlier material.

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Anthony Ritchie  

The Tuatara Dances

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1994
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    picc2222; 4231; 3 timp, 2 perc inc. bass drm, cymb, trngl, glock, xylo, marimba, drum kit with tom toms, log drum, tam tam; strs
  • Programme Note

    In New Zealand there has been a reluctance on the part of pakeha men to move to music. Perhaps it is our Victorian background that makes us feel silly and self-conscious when dancing. We pefer to sit back and be still, like the Tuatara.

    In this piece, the old reptile (Tuatara) shakes off his passive past and moves to some more contemporary-sounding dance rhythms. The work is in a continuous movement, divided into several sections. It opens with an ironical glance at the atonal past before flicking it away, like a fly. A jaunty ‘Tuatara’ theme is played on clarinet over bass ostinati, leading to a more vibrant and lively theme. While the first section is earthy and physical in character, the second is a fantasy, full of ethereal images. The initial delicate waltz theme develops and grows into a more menacing idea, before fading back into the ‘Tuatara’ theme. The rest of the piece comprises various dances that adopt certain styles: jazz, folky, rock. A gypsy-like theme combines with a version of ‘God Defend NZ’ in a section where pakeha men are on their feet! The finale uses log drum and Pacific Island rhythms to bring the piece to an exciting conclusion.

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Christopher Blake  

Till Human Voices Wake Us

Duration: 17' 00" Year: 1986
for tenor voice and orchestra