SOUNZ

Gillian Whitehead

Awa Herea (Braided Rivers)

Duration: 22' 00" Year: 1993
a song cycle for soprano and piano

Score Sample

Programme Note

This song cycle for soprano and piano has texts by the composer in Maori and English.

“Awa Herea memorably evokes the physical appearance of symbolic significance of these braided rivers… cosmic weather-driven energy.” (Covell, Sydney Morning Herald).

“Its pace was shrewdly varied and the music encompassed a range of styles – from sung declamation to florid lyricism – without incongruity.” (Jack, Independent).

“The cycle displays all the characteristics of her [Gillian Whitehead’s] mature work. The vocal line is at once exultant and contemplative, the piano writing incisive or lulling; the formal shaping novel yet accessible. It is a memorable piece, filled with the energetic spirit of the natural world and finding through that spirit its own serenity.”
Availability
- Whitehead: Awa Herea; computer-set
  
  Full score | Pdf - computer set
- Whitehead: Awa Herea; computer-set
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  $22.50
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- Whitehead: Awa Herea; facsimile
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
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- NZIAF: Gillian Whitehead Portrait; part 2
  
  CD
- Waikohu: Mere Boynton and Friends
  
  CD
  
  $30.00
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- Tracey Chadwell's Songbook Year: 1995
  
  CD
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- Ears Wide Open Taringa Areare Education Resource CD Year: 2000
  
  CD
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Annea Lockwood

Ear-Walking Woman

Duration: 22' 00" Year: 1996
for prepared piano with amplification

Video Sample

Programme Note

For prepared piano and exploring pianist, uses the classic piano piano preparations: coins (to detune the strings), screws, wiring insulation sheathing, plus bubble wrap, a rubber ball and small wooden balls, two round stones, a bowl gong, mallets and a water glass. The piece was commissioned by Lois Svard, to whom it is dedicated and who has given many superb performances of it.

When I started experimenting with these objects on my own piano, I found that even slight changes in the method of producing a sound evoked striking variants in sonic details, for example: rocking a stone gently between two sets of strings brins out several pitches and their overtones, iterating in unpredictable rhythms. Getting the stone to rock really hard adds higher pitches and at times the stone will turn over, setting of a new set of strings and pitches, which gradually fade away as the stone comes to rest.

The work is set up as an open-ended exploration, in which have determined which ‘tools’ are to be used in each section, and the pianist is asked to listen closely to the sounds created by each action, and to explore further the variants which arise when she or he uses a little more pressure and change of speed, a slightly different wrist position, a different make of piano. I think of this experience as “ear-walking”, like a hiker exploring a landscape.

Annea Lockwood
Availability
- Lockwood: Ear-Walking Woman; facsimile
  
  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
  - Borrow
- Lockwood: Ear-Walking Woman - Lois Svard Year: 2005
  
  DVD
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