Work

Programme Note

Feral is the story of a creature that lives somewhere humans seldom go. His environment is dank and dark. Sunlight seldom penetrates the tree canopy – day is differentiated from night only by a thin translucent film. This area is down the side of a hill in a remote, inhospitable valley not easily accessed by others. Perhaps it’s a forbidding lost world at the back of your garden.

The creature is aggressive, easily spurned, and thoroughly anti-social – both by environment and by choice. He has no need of a name, because nobody ever sees him long enough to give him one – or at least nobody lives to tell the tale. You find yourself on his turf. Nobody can hear you.

You’re never to be heard from again.

Feral was workshopped by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and conductor Hamish McKeich as a finalist in the 2009 NZSO/Todd Corporation Young Composers Competition. The piece was highly commended through winning the Orchestra’s Choice Award.

Difficulty:

Advanced

Performance History

	24 Aug 2009	Workshopped as part of the NZSO/Todd Corporation Young Composer Award and performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington
		Hamish McKeich    New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
	16 Jun 2012	Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich, with choreography by Jaered Glavin from the Royal New Zealand Ballet, danced by Medhi Angot, Katherine Grange, Antonia Hewitt, Bronte Kelly, Dimitri Kleioris and Yang Liu. Part of Leaps & Sounds, a collaboration between the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra & the Royal New Zealand Ballet.
		Hamish McKeich    New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Awards

• NZSO/Todd Corporation Young Composer Award (2009)
  Feral by Robbie Ellis was voted the orchestra’s favourite piece at the NZSO/Todd Foundation Corporation Young Composer Awards in 2009