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Philip Norman  

A Lion in the Meadow

 Year: 2009
for narrator and orchestra

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Bryony Jagger  

A song for my Lover

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1991
for contralto, narrator and orchestra

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Philip Norman  

Earthquake: 22.2.11

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2011
a single movement work for narrator and orchestra

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  • Instrumentation
    flexible instrumentation up to 3333; 4331; 3perc, timp, piano, harp; strings
  • Programme Note

    Earthquake: 22.2.11 began as a project after the September 2010 earthquakes struck Christchurch and surrounding districts. I was interested in capturing the peculiar sonic properties of the earthquakes – the unnatural preparatory calm, the low pitched boom, the change in air pressure, the accelerating rhythms, the creaks, the rattles, the cracks, the climactic shuddering of the building one was in, the decay of sound, and the silence before the cacophonous response of voices, alarms, telephones, sirens, police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and helicopters.

    I successfully applied for Creative New Zealand funding to compose such a work for the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and set to work late in 2010.

    The earthquakes hadn’t finished though. On February 22, 2011, in New Zealand’s worst natural disaster since the 1931 Napier earthquake, a 7.2 earthquake centred on Christchurch killed 185 people and caused inestimable damage to the city’s buildings and infrastructure. Composing a dispassionate response was no longer appropriate; indeed, composing anything at all about the event seemed wrong, almost exploitative, in the face of the human tragedy.

    I stumbled upon Gary McCormick’s poem Earthquake 22.2.11 shortly after he wrote it as a white-hot response to the devastation. I empathised with his anger and his railing at the randomness of the event. Even so, it took almost a year before I felt ready to set Gary’s poem to music. The catalyst was a further round of earthquakes beginning on 23 December 2011, in which further damage, including the destruction of our previous home, a beautiful Victorian dwelling I had helped restore in the 1990s, occurred to the city. Something like 10 quakes of magnitude 5 or more occurred while I was composing the score.

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Yvette Audain  

Eulogy

Duration: 10' 00" Year: 2010
for full symphony orchestra and narrator

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    piccolo, flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon 1 and 2, 3 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, 2 percussionists (crash cymbals, suspended cymbals, roto-toms, claves, rain stick, vibraphone), harp, strings and narrator
  • Programme Note

    “I enjoyed performing and recording Eulogy very much. Such a warmth of texture and harmonies which created a sympathetic palette for Olivia Macassey’s word painting” – Kenneth Young

    My decision to set this text for orchestra initially arose, not only from reading the poem and appreciating it for what it is, but also from the recent passing of a dear musician colleague with whom I had collaborated on many early jazz projects.

    However, at time of writing, I have become most un-nerved by the senseless loss of young life that has been occurring with alarming regularity at a couple of schools I have recently taught at. It was with these tremendously sad, sudden passings in mind that I completed my work on the piano short score of Eulogy, before commencing work on its orchestration.

    Yvette Audain

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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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Jack Body  

Fours on my teaching

 Year: 1997
for orchestra with speaker

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Kit Powell  

Hubert the Clockmaker

 Year: 1982
arranged for orchestra and narrator

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Douglas Lilburn  

Landfall in Unknown Seas

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

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Jack Body  

Poems of Solitary Delights

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

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Anthony Ritchie  

Portrait of FH

Duration: 28' 00" Year: 2009
for orchestra with optional narrator part

  • Instrumentation
    2222;2220;2perc, timp, piano; strings with optional narrator part for texts to be spoken between movements of the music
  • Programme Note

    Portrait of FH was commissioned by The Southern Sinfonia and written as part of a presentation about the life of great NZ artist, Frances Hodgkins. It reflects on aspects of the artist’s life, ranging from her early days in NZ in the late 19th century through to the ‘flowering of her career’ in the 1940s, when she was one of the leading modernist painters of her generation.

    The work opens with the Frances doodling at the piano (an instrument she played), improvising a theme, which then gets woven into the fabric of the piece. The orchestra enters with a flourish, and both the Prelude and ‘Water- colours’ are optimistic and lively in tone.

    In ‘Water-colours’ I took as a cue Frances’ statement “I made the paint dance,” and a waltz feel pervades the piece. ‘Oils’, by contrast, is somber in tone, with a sense of loneliness and also reflects the hardships of war. ‘Gouaches’ is strange and colourful in sound, and becomes heroic in tone towards the end, before an unresolved ending, in which the piano returns again.

    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, also relates to the whimsical, poignant self-portraits she painted.

    This work was the brainchild of art collector and curator Marshall Seifert, and it is to Marshall that I dedicate the music.

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