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David Hamilton  

Akoako o te Rangi

Duration: 03' 10" Year: 2010
arrangement of piece by Erima Maewa Kaihau for SSA choir and piano

  • Programme Note

    This is the second arrangement made of a song written around 1918 by Erima Maewa Kaihau (1879-1941). It follows on from E moe te ra made in 2007 – both pieces arranged at the request of David Gordon of Diocesan School for Girls. Erima Maewa Kaihau was also involved in the complex gestation of the song Now is the hour.

    Akoako o te Rangi is also very much in the late Victorian tradition of ‘parlour ballads’ and owes little to traditional Maori song forms or styles. In fact the rather erratic word underlay of the Maori text suggests that the English version (hardly a translation though of the Maori) may have been te first made.

    The text is short although there may have originally been further verses (the printed music, published in 1918, contains just the one verse). It is a love song – the scent of a loved one wafting on the breeze to awaken the sleeping lovelorn singer.

  • Availability

Graham Parsons  

Changing the Clocks - Trials of the Digital Age

Duration: 02' 20" Year: 2010
for small to medium sized SSA choir with optional accompaniment

Juliet Palmer  

Dopey

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 2010
for SSA choir and piano

  • Programme Note

    A setting of a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Lee. “Dopey” comes from the 2007 poetry collection “Yesno”, evoking – in the author’s words – “a world in which the demolition derby and the possibility of living more constructively in the natural order are both real. And at once. So, not just no; not just yes; but yesno.”

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

Escape at Bedtime

Duration: 02' 50" Year: 2011
for SA choir and piano

  • Programme Note

    Although Robert Louis Stevenson’s poetry is not as well known as it once was, his collection A Child’s Garden of Verses still stands as one of the most important early collections of poetry for young people. This fantastical poem tells of a child’s impressions of nighttime and the “thousands of millions of stars” which appear to be chasing him or her. Even when packed off to bed, the sight of the stars remains in the child’s mind’s eye. Several star constellations are named in the poem.

    Escape at Bedtime was commissioned by Sydney Grammar School for the school’s music tour to New Zealand in 2011.

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

Rise! Shine!

Duration: 02' 50" Year: 2010
for SSA choir and piano

  • Programme Note

    This lively spiritual sets a traditional text dealing with the hope of one day being with the Lord and expectation of his imminent arrival.

    Rise! Shine! was written for Silver Swans (conductor Fiona Wilson), one of the choirs at Westlake Girls’ High School (Auckland).

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

The Voices of Children

Duration: 03' 15" Year: 2010
for SSA and piano

  • Programme Note

    “Nurses’ Song” is the name of two related poems by English poet William Blake (1757-1827). While both speak of children playing outside watched by their Nurse, the first version published in 1789’s “Songs of Innocence”, is a positive view of play and innocence, with no hint of the things that night (or life) will bring. The second , and shorter, version published in 1794’s “Songs of Experience” shows the Nurse as someone who is bitter and jealous of the freedom of children’s play.

    This setting was written for the inaugural SingDownunder choral festival in Auckland, as a piece for the combined treble-voice choirs to perform.

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

We Shall Walk Through the Valley

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 2010
for SSA choir and piano

Alex van den Broek  

Wild Daisies

Duration: 02' 30" Year: 2010
for SSA choir and piano