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This orchestral work with mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists was commissioned anonymously for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and is inspired by “Macbeth” Act IV Sc III. The text is by Patrick McGuire and the work is in seven movements.

• Cresswell: A Modern Ecstasy; facsimile 

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• Cresswell: A Modern Ecstasy; facsimile 

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• Lyell Cresswell: Orchestral Music -1  Year: 1991 

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In 1909 Alice Adcock, a lively and adventurous young woman from Manchester, was on her way to New Zealand. She was 23, and had recently developed TB, for which there was then no cure. Somehow she persuaded her widowed father to let her travel alone to the other side of the world in case a healthy climate would save her life. (It worked – she lived for another 50 years). The family kept her entertaining letter describing shipboard life, and a few postcards from her have also survived, but most of what we know about her time in New Zealand comes from her father’s letters to her, of which he kept copies, or from family tradition. On her arrival in New Zealand, Alice went into service, travelling widely, much to the consternation of her father. As housekeeper (and the only woman) on a farm in Makarora (a remote settlement on Lake Wanaka) she became pregnant to an unknown man, but was ‘rescued’ by marriage to a local farmer, Charles Pipson, shortly before the birth of her daughter. In 1911, her beloved father died; in 1912, Alice and Charles had a son and the following year, pregnant again, Alice took her children back to England to visit her family. Tragically, while she was away, her husband died suddenly of typhoid fever. Alice hurried back to Makarora to claim her inheritance, but left the two babies with her brother Sam and his wife (who were shortly to emigrate to New Zealand) and took only her eldest child, the illegitimate one, with her. This outraged her sisters-in-law, who saw it as an insult to their dead brother; they sent her away from the farm empty-handed. Once again she had to take a housekeeping job, this time in the North Island. In 1914, Alice and her brother’s family met up again, and Alice began a new life. (Fleur Adcock – abridged) The music of Alice is text-driven, ranging between a language at times extremely simple, as was the basic musical language of the settlers, and at times quite complex, evoking a storm at sea, or the unease of the settlers in a new environment, or Alice’s reaction to the problems which beset her. The piece is held together by various referential motifs. The initial idea, which perhaps suggests the instability of the sea, is also present in the bell-like sounds marking Charles’ death, music associated with a storm at sea is later associated with mental stress, while music suggestive of the movement of shipboard lice later underlies Alice’s traumatic encounter with her sisters-in-law.

There are eight sections, which often merge into one another: 1. in a letter to her father, Alice describes shipboard life; 2. in New Zealand, she compares her past life and hopes for the future; 3. a dialogue between father and daughter, expressed through their letters; 4. in Makarora, Alice discovers she is pregnant; 5. Alice hears of her father’s death; 6. in England, she learns of her husband’s death; 7. back in Makarora, Alice is turned away by her sisters-in-law; 8. turning her back on the South Island, Alice looks forward to her new life with her brother’s family in the north.

While writing this piece, I was drawn again and again into the thought that, although this is a true story, set in a particular place at a certain time, it has the resonances of a universal myth, known to all of us who live here. Our forebears, or we ourselves, have crossed the seas to begin a new life, with unforeseen and unimaginable difficulties and felicities, whether ten years, a century or a millennium or so ago.

• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

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• Whitehead: Alice; computer-set 

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• Gillian Whitehead: Alice; audio 

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• Whitehead: Quintet and Alice  

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• Gillian Whitehead: Alice 

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• Cresswell: Canterbury Rhymes; computer-set 

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An essay in tension between soloist and orchestra. In the first movement long cello solos are contrasted with outbursts from the orchestra; in the second movement cello and orchestra merge – the cello sound coloured by various doublings; and the last movement is a moto perpetuo again contrasting soloist with orchestra. Premiered by cellist Alexander Baillie, conducted by Matthias Bamert and the Scottish National Orchestra.

• Cresswell: Cello Concerto; facsimile 

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• Lyell Cresswell: Orchestral Music -1  Year: 1991 

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• Blake: Concerto Aoraki; computer-set 

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• Blake: Concerto Aoraki 

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Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is untitled but the music is hardly “absolute”. On the contrary, it is often extroverted, evocative, and full of passionate expression. The piece is both a concerto, in terms of the amount of writing for the piano (including three extended cadenzas), and also a symphony since it has an equally demanding role for the orchestra. The relationship between the two forces alternates between independence and embracement.


The first movement, in moderate tempo, is lyrical in nature and evolves around singing lines. The melodic style shares similarities with the music of some of the nationalities of Southern China, for example, of the Miao people.


The second movement has a long slow introduction which unfolds from a series of mysterious chords. They form the basis for the rest of the movement that becomes fast and virtuosic, combining dancing rhythms and long melodic lines. The whole work evokes an atmosphere of songs and dances of ancient times.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was commissioned by Professor Jack Richards who is an ardent supporter of New Zealand music. I played the 1st performance with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Keneth Young in the Wellington Town Hall in May 2008.

Gao Ping, August 2008

• Gao: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Gao: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Gao Ping: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 

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• Whitehead: Eleanor of Aquitaine; facsimile 

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• Whitehead: Eleanor of Aquitaine; facsimile 

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• Jonathan Besser: Jean - The Ballet  Year: 1990 

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• SOUNZfine Volume 3 

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• New Zealand Composers On Screen 

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• Memory and Desire - soundtrack from the movie  Year: 1997 

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This work is not really a conventional concerto, nor is it a symphony, but rather, a hybrid of the two. The first movement is inspired by Egyptian Oud music, and is a series of variations on a nine-note mode of my own invention. Each subsequent variation before and after the “Taqsim” has a number of measures divisible by nine. This is also true for some groups of time-signatures. While this may seem arbitrary, in fact it is (we composers often are an arbitrary lot). The second movement is a pastiche of how Bruckner might have written a slow movement to a concerto if he had ever written one (however, melodies of Basque and Czech baroque origin are employed). Movement three is titled after an aphorism in Twee (a West African language) and means, metaphorically, “I’m no better than you are.” While using Ligeti’s concept of placing two diatonic melodies a minor ninth apart, it also moves into different bi-tonal key signatures, thereby providing some harmonic movement (although not movement in the conventional western sense). It also emulates some African dance music where often one finds regular beats of unequal length. The final movement uses two Renaissance melodies as its foundation, “A la Guerra, a la Guerra” and the title melody. In addition, there is a melody for the second group (we are dealing with sonata form, here) which has its origins in the folk music of the langue d’Oc region of France.

• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra; computer-set 

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• Davidson: Music for Piano with Orchestra 

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