Search Music:

Our version of A Christmas Carol began as a glint in Russell Kerr’s eye. I remember a phone call from Russell in late 1988: “Philip – I think I’ve got an idea for a ballet that might work…”.

Two years later, A Christmas Carol opened in the Theatre Royal, Christchurch in a polished production by Southern Ballet, with Russell himself in the demanding dual roles of Scrooge and choreographer.

The success of the Southern Ballet’s presentation led to an unexpected invitation from Angela Gorton, then General Manager of Canterbury Opera.

“Would it be possible to convert the ballet into an opera?” Angela asked. “You’ve got to be joking” I remember thinking. “Yes, of course, no problems” I replied.

The temporary bout of insanity continued. I chose to write the libretto, as well as taking on the challenge of converting what was an electronic tape score into a 500-page manuscript for live orchestra and singers.

Thankfully, as it transpired, much of the original electronic score translated fairly readily into the different medium. At most, keys and speeds were altered, and occasional phrases tweaked to suit the range and breath requirements of the human performers. This left under half the ballet requiring either substantial revision or fresh material.

1993 disappeared in a blur of notes, rhyming couplets and spectral apparitions. One memory remains clear, and that is the thrill of seeing my labours brought to life in a gratifying premiere season of the opera by Canterbury Opera.

Someone once said ‘being a composer in New Zealand must be like being a bullfighter in Finland”. Certainly conventional wisdom has it that while a first performance of a new work is relatively easy to secure, opportunities for subsequent performances are as rare as a happy Wagnerian heroine.

Thus it was with relish and gratitude that I leapt upon the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s invitation to turn my opera score back into a ballet. This time, it was to be for humans to play, and a full orchestra no less. Oh joy oh bliss.

And it has given me the opportunity to use the wonderful line – I spent most of 2001 decomposing.

I feel enormously privileged to have the opportunity to work once again with Russell, Kristian, the Royal New Zealand Ballet and, of course, Charles Dickens.

Philip Norman
Composer
“A Christmas Carol”

• McKenzie: Alice in Wonderland - a ballet suite; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $20.00

• McKenzie: Alice in Wonderland; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $20.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Music by Lachlan McKenzie 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Palmer: Cypress; computer set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $8.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Palmer: Cypress; computer set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  
  $8.00
  • • Quantity:

• Jonathan Besser: Danceabout 

  CD
  
  $40.50
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• decadence - celebrating 10 years of Besser and Bravura 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

The rich overtone resonances from low, rubber-stopped notes on the piano create sensuous single sound moments in the music. These Filipino gong music inspired resonances combine with slow European chorale-like gestures throughout to provide breath moments within an increasingly combative musical texture. The melodic-line derived from Bontok war-chant, usually the prerogative of men, finds full cry in erotic “sea ripples”, which in turn generates long-lyric lines expressive of the poem’s princess meditation on war. Even the chorale-like breath segments work in shortening gasps leading to transfigured Kulintang (Filipino percussion) segments whose dance-like momentum undergird the “metal timbre” climax of work. The text is drawn from Merlinda Bobis’ epic poem Cantata of the Warrior Woman Daragang Magayon – a revisionist re-telling of the Philippines ancient myth associated with the active volcano Mount Mayon. It charts the play of ambivalence and conviction of a beautiful maiden on the eve of battle and is interpreted by the composer as a metaphor of volcanic, erotically-fuelled anger against social injustice, not just in war but in cultural colonisation.

• Crossman: Daragang Magayon Cantata; computer  

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Daragang Magayon Cantata - Bruce Crossman / Merlinda Bobis 

  Video
  
  • Borrow

• Bruce Crossman: Selected Works (1996-2001) 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Bruce Crossman: Intercultural Sounds 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Bruce Crossman: Selected Works (1996-2001) Vol. 2 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Double Resonances - Bruce Crossman  Year: 2008 

  CD
  

Original programme note from the premiere:

For co-choreographer Anandha Ray, this dance is a very personal introspection. Ms. Ray dedicates this dance to Dan Meeks, the seventh son of a seventh son, medicine man for his tribe, her late great-grandfather. Though her family’s American Indian heritage was kept secret to avoid the severe prejudices of the South, Ms. Ray was privileged to learn from him a few of the traditions for planting and using sacred tobacco as a healing tool. The dance was inspired in honor of this ancestry. Anandha Ray and Charles Anderson, with widely varying backgrounds and styles of dance, collaborated with Thomas Goss in each section of the choreographic process to co-create the sections and movements of the dance and music. Loran Watkins’ costume design augments the abstract representation of Ray’s memories of her American Indian culture intertwined with her family’s need to hide this heritage. The lyrics in Goss’s score were adapted and translated by Native American healer Fred Jack Miles Manitoumahwhingon from a traditional Chippewa Indian prayer for times of journey, whether physical or spiritual.

Using animal imagery to take us into the heart of the human condition, Inland charts the fragile equilibrium between shepherd, flock, dog and hawk. Inland is a dance-theatre work conceived and choreographed by Douglas Wright. The work was commissioned by the 2002 New Zealand Festival with funding from Creative New Zealand.

• Palmer: Inland 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Palmer: Inland  Year: 2002 

  DVD
  
  • Borrow

Soundtrack to the second half of New Zealand School of Dance 2004 choreographic season Intimate Space at Te Whaea Theatre, Newtown, where it was electronically defused through the sound system.

• New Zealand Selection 1 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Premieres 2004, Vol. 7  Year: 2003 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Stephen Gallagher: Mathematical Geography  Year: 2004 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

• Parker: Mr. Dever; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Parker: Mr. Dever; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

Music to accompany the poem “Fall Sonata” by Sue Wootton. For the “A Circle of Life: A Collaboration” project, facilitated by Barbara Snook.

At a welcome function for the 2008 Arts Fellows at the University of Otago, the Caroline Plummer Dance Fellow, Barbara Snook, indicated that she would like to work with other Fellows on a community dance project for people whose lives had been touched by the experience of cancer.

It so happened that the Burns Fellow, Sue Wootton, was in the process of writing what turned out to be a powerful and deeply moving poem about the battle with cancer of a close friend. I recorded Sue reciting her poem, Fall Sonata, and backed it with music, highlighting thoughts and emotions such as fear, resignation and respite.

Both Sue and I attended workshop sessions facilitated by Barbara in which people from the community sought to out their feelings about cancer through physical movement. These were moving occasions.