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David Farquhar  

Beyond ...

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 2004, r. 2005
for orchestra

Bryony Jagger  

Breaking Silence

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 2002
for orchestra

Craig Utting  

Cirrus

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2002
for orchestra

Daniel Stabler  

eccco fantasy for orchestra

Duration: 11' 00" Year: 2002, r. 2005
for orchestra

Chris Adams  

Elegy (for a world obsessed with violence)

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2002
one movement work for orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3*3*33; 4331; timp, 2p, cel, hp, string
  • Programme Note

    Elegy is my personal reflection on the events of September 11th, 2001, their aftermath and the fixation on and use of violence in our global culture. Although the piece took me just over six months to complete, I started writing it shortly after the attacks on the Twin Towers. I was living in Wells, and was physically very distanced from the events that the world observed taking place in America and later in Afghanistan, Bali, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Spain. In this piece, I am exploring both the horrific tragedy of the situation, and the American response to that day. It is an emotional response to the tragedy and not in any way programmatic. Essentially Elegy is a work full of hope. Hope that it is possible to find better ways to resolve conflict within our world. Hope that it is possible for different cultures and beliefs to coexist with understanding and tolerance for others. Hope that people will not see everything as black and white with only one right way or answer and not be influenced by ignorance or greed.

  • Availability

Anthony Ritchie  

French Overture

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 2008
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings
  • Programme Note

    French Overture was composed for The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on request from conductor Tecwyn Evans, for inclusion in the 2009 tour of the North Island. It is scored for a Classical sized orchestra, and adopts the structure of the French Baroque overture: slow-fast-slow. Some features in the music also suggest a neo-classical character, such as stern dotted rhythms at the start and a fugato section in the quick section.


    The composer wrote this overture while on study leave in Paris, and it is informed by some of his experiences in that city: the plethora of ancient buildings and sites, the noise and bustle of the place, the people living on the streets. At one point a strange waltz emerges, reminiscent of music from an organ grinder. Another feature is a long, climbing melody on violins near the start of the overture, which represents the eye’s search for light in Paris. Surrounded by tall apartments, we have to look up to see beyond them, something a New Zealander is not used to doing. There is elegance in Paris but there is also a tough and forbidding quality that makes a strong impression on someone from a small, unpopulated country. When the stern opening returns late in the piece it finally subsides into something softer and more human, a folk-like version of the climbing melody, which now descends peacefully into a quiet timpani solo at the end.

  • Availability

Anthony Ritchie  

Gouache

Duration: 10' 15" Year: 2009
Piece for orchestra, originally the final movement of the work for orchestra and film entitled 'Portrait of FH'

  • Instrumentation
    2222, 2220, timp., 3 perc., piano, strings
  • Programme Note

    Gouache’ is the final movement from the orchestra suite ‘Portrait of FH’, a work about the life of artist Frances Hodgkins. At the premiere the music was interspersed with readings from Hodgkins’ diaries, and prints of her paintings were shown. However, the music can be performed without the multi-media aspect fo the work.

    Gouache’ is strange and colourful in sound, reflecting some of those extraordinary late works of the artist. (Gouache is a heavier and more opaque medium compared with water colours, with a binding agent added into the mixture.) There is also struggle and pain in this music, and it attempts to become heroic in tone towards the end, before collapsing into an unresolved ending. Hodgkins had to struggle very hard for recognition during her life, and endured a great deal of loneliness in the pursuit of her art. The artist herself is symbolized in the music by the presence of the piano, an instrument she enjoyed playing. All movements are connected by the use of a musical motif, F-B which, when using the traditional German note names, spell F-H. This motif, representing Frances, is also a reference to the whimsical, poignant self-portraits she painted.

  • Availability

Claire Cowan  

Here at this quiet limit of the world

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2004
for full orchestra

Anthony Young  

Mamaku

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2002
for full orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    3*(alto)3*33; 4431; timp., perc. (3), hp; strings Percussion: mba, sus. cym., tri., wdblck, b.d., tam-tam, tub. bells, xyl., glock.
  • Programme Note

    The mamaku is the black tree ferns and is the tallest tree fern of New Zealand. Like other ferns, its fronds open out, forming the koru. Off one shape, more of the same shapes unravel, and then off these in turn, tiny parts of the frond unravel, and so on. From the moment of ‘birth’, the gradual cycle continues until the magnificent tree fern is towers, quite different from its original form and the koru is still present. In this piece I’ve explored slow metamorphosis, with the aim to grow sounds out of each other with contrasting results. Diatonic chords out of chromatic clusters, beauty out of chaos. All of this begins from a single note, f, at the start which is born out of string harmonics and imperceptible pitches, and concludes with hint that the cycle an ongoing one.

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John Elmsly  

Of Secrets, Echoes...

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2000
for orchestra