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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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Kit Powell  

Hubert the Clockmaker

 Year: 1982
arranged for orchestra and narrator

Douglas Lilburn  

Landfall in Unknown Seas

Duration: 18' 00" Year: 1942
for string orchestra and narrator

Jack Body  

Poems of Solitary Delights

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 1985
for orchestra and tenor (narrator)

Lyell Cresswell  

Shadows without Sun

 Year: 2003
for chamber orchestra, mezzo-soprano and narrator

  • Programme Note

    Shadows Without Sun explores issues of exile, identity and belonging. The text uses testimony of asylum seekers in UK as well as stories of Norman McLeod, a minister who escaped the Highland Clearances and the story of the prophet Cassandra.

    Notes taken from Cresswell: The Voice Inside, NAXOS 8.570824

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Jenny McLeod  

The Emperor and the Nightingale

Duration: 23' 00" Year: 1985, r. 2010
for narrator and orchestra

Chris Archer  

The Musical Menagerie

Duration: 09' 00" Year: 1986
for chamber orchestra and narrator

Andrew Perkins  

The Radish and the Shoe

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 2010
for narrator and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    Piccolo, Flute, Oboe, Cor Anglais, Bb Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Contra-bassoon, 4 Horns in F, 3 Trumpets, two Trombones, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Timpani, Vibraphone, Congas, Snare Drum, Harp, Narrator, Strings.
  • Programme Note

    The story of “The Radish and the Shoe” was created by French Canadian artist Louise Jalbert and set to music by Andrew Perkins. Jalbert’s book won the Parents’ Choice Award when it was first published in California in 1984 and has since been republished. The characters, a Radish, a Shoe and a group of Letters, all reside inside a book which they call their home. One day a pair of scissors attacks the book, destroying the characters’ home, leaving them completely despondent. However, they pick themselves up and repair their book, and in the process inadvertently transform their ‘home’ into something more beautiful than before. The story is cleverly analogous with survival in the real world and one that has always rung resonances with the philosophical approach to life Andrew Perkins has always attempted to instill in his students.

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Douglas Lilburn  

Three Poems of the Sea

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 1958
for strings and narrator

Anthony Ritchie  

Timeless Land

Duration: 43' 00" Year: 2003
a work for orchestra accompanied by film, artworks and poetry

  • Instrumentation
    3222; 4231; timp, percussions (2), harp, strings, solo soprano
  • Programme Note

    Central Otago holds a special place in the hearts of many people. This is clear to see in the wonderful book called ‘Timeless Land’ which combines the paintings of Grahame Sydney with the writings of Brian Turner and Owen Marshall. We decided early on to focus on the Maniototo, which is Grahame’s spiritual heartland and which has inspired so many of his great works. For me the Maniototo suggests a variety of feelings: awe at the expansiveness of the land and the surrounding ranges. There is the exhilarating beauty of the different seasons: the Autumnal colours for instance, or the bleak Winter images. There is the strange sense of freedom and escape that one experiences driving through the Maniototo. There can also be an overwhelming sense of loneliness, and feelings of insignificance when placed in such a vast, un-peopled landscape. Then there are the reminders of human impermanence, with decaying and abandoned structures, old graveyards and memorials. The Maniototo will mean different things to different people, but in this work I have tried to portray it in sound, as I feel it in my heart. So the music is not simply descriptive, or impressionistic; it also reflects human moods and emotions. While the music is designed to be combined with images, it can also stand alone. There is a loose symphonic structure in the four movements, with recurring themes and motifs. Most significant of these are the opening cornet melody, and an assertive cornet call that first appears in the middle of the second movement. This cornet call has a vague connection with The Last Post, and becomes a reminder of death in the third movement. Most themes and ideas in the music derive from the manipulations of a 5-note motif, using magic squares. The 5-note motif, which is never openly revealed in the piece, comes from a short Magnificat, composed at the time of my mother’s death in 2001.

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