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Claire Cowan  

'Whetu-Rere' - The Sea Lion and the Comet

Duration: 22' 00" Year: 2007
for voice and mixed chamber sextet with taonga puoro

Jonathan Crehan  

Aftermath

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2004
a sonata for cello and piano

Dorothy Buchanan  

An Ocean Between Us

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2006
for mezzo-soprano and piano quartet

Gareth Farr  

Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra 'Celebrate Wellington'

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2004
for four percussion soloists and orchestra

Gillian Whitehead  

Hineputehue

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2002
for string quartet and taonga puoro (Maori instruments)

  • Instrumentation
    Taonga puoro (improvised): poi awhioahio, hue puruhau, koauau ponga ihu, nguru, ororuarangi, ku, putatara, pu kaea, pumotomoto, pupu harakekek, tumutumu
  • Programme Note

    Hineputehue translates literally as the woman of the sound of the gourd, and she is the Maori goddess of peace. The work was written in 2001, at the time of President Bush’s State of the Union address shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan, and suggests the fragility rather than the celebration of peace, particularly in a pre-European environment.

    A number of instruments used in Hineputehue are made of gourds – the gourd, which carried food and water, is a symbol of peace. These include the poi awiowhio, a very quiet bird lure which is swung around the head, the tiny koauau ponga ihu or noseflute which ends the piece, the hue puru hau, a large gourd which is blown across its top opening and the gourd rattles played by the quartet. Two other wind instruments frequently made from gourds, the nguru and the ororuarangi, are also used. Other instruments are the putatara or conch shell trumpet, traditionally used for signalling, the pu kaea or war trumpet, a nguru niho paraoa or flute made from a whale’s tooth, the pumotomoto, associated with birth, and tumutumu (tapped percussion).

    There is a similarity between the stringed instruments of the quartet and the gourds, in that they are made from plant material, with sound emitted through sound holes. Another link is the ku, the only stringed instrument known to Maori, which is a small musical bow played like a jaws harp (jews harp) using the mouth as a resonating chamber. The idea of ororuarangi, which can be translated as spirit voice (or double stopping in a different context) has had some influence on this piece as in the parallel movement of the strings.

  • Availability

Eve de Castro-Robinson  

Len Songs

Duration: 25' 00" Year: 2003
for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, violin and piano

Hugh Dixon  

Lyric Sketches

Duration: 21' 00" Year: 2004
for flute, violin, horn, and cello

  • Programme Note

    Lyric Sketches had its genesis in a suggestion from the composer’s son, Michael, to arrange my Songs of Mystic Jade for his quartet, Locana.

    This cycle of structurally-related songs with the inclusion of Anthem to the Dawn and The Babbling Brook became a suite of eight pieces. The suite begins with Anthem to the Dawn inspired by a poem the composer’s wife, Rae, wrote a number of years ago. The grandioso section of the final movement, Motion, posed a problem in orchestrating the rolling arpeggios with sustaining pedal of the original piano part. I acknowledge Michael’s suggested solution which helped to retain a similar effect within the limitation of the four instruments.

  • Availability

Christopher Marshall  

O Fragile Human

Duration: 24' 00" Year: 2004
a song cycle for mixed choir

Gillian Whitehead  

Piano Trio

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2005

  • Programme Note

    One winter morning, a short walk from the marae at Waihi, on the southern shore of Lake Taupo, I stood on the shore to watch the sun rise. Behind me, a waterfall lead to a small stream that flowed into the lake, imposing its own patterns on those of the lake. The water was uniformly grey, but as the sun rose, for a moment the tops of the ripples were golden, with darker valleys between, before the whole area was flooded with light. So the ideas behind this trio have to do with the changing perspectives of patterns in water – in the bubbling of streams, the tumble of a waterfall, in the spiralling eddies where stream meets lake at sunrise.

    In the opening movement, a group of short themes and ideas initially form a mosaic-like section, which recurs in developed and varied forms around more reflective passages. The second movement reverses the first, in that slow, sustained sections are interrupted by more energetic material, and the final movement draws all the previous ideas together.

  • Availability

Robin Fazakerley  

Piha Waiata Po

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 2002
for solo cello and chamber orchestra