In this series, we present our new composers. We are proud to introduce Georgina Palmer.
Kia ora Georgina, please tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
I am a 22-year-old New Zealand composer, currently studying in Melbourne at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music; I began composing shortly after starting classical piano lessons at the age of six. As well as my piano background, I have been playing percussion for about eight years and I played violin for about six years whilst at secondary school. Alongside study, I am currently interning as a broadcasting/admin assistant at 3MBS Radio (a classical music radio station in Melbourne) and I'm really enjoying that! I have also played in a number of competitive brass bands across New Zealand and Australia, and currently am a percussionist for Darebin City Brass (Preston Band). I try to get involved in a variety of musical projects wherever I am, as I find it's the best way to learn new skills and make valuable connections and friendships.
I would describe my music as being quite filmscore-esque (I have scored a number of short films for university projects in recent years), and it's at the more tonal/logical end of the new music scale. Most of my musical experience so far has involved writing for chamber ensembles (some of which I've performed in myself, such as in a piano trio setting), although I have also written for orchestras and brass bands, among others. I also have a reasonably comprehensive dance background (and I teach dance part-time), so I have done a couple of works in which I both composed the music and choreographed the movements. I enjoy the challenge of writing for all kinds of instruments and contexts, whilst staying true to my aesthetic preferences and 'compositional voice' in each work I create.
I've received a number of composition awards across New Zealand and Australia, including the SOUNZ/NZCF Choral Composition Award in 2020 (for "A Music Everywhere"), the Audrey Reid Composition Prize in 2022 (for "A Grand Adventure") and the Sutherland Trio Composition Award in 2023 (for "Emerge"). I was also the Emerging Composer for the 2023 At The World's Edge Festival in Queenstown in October 2023, which has been an absolute highlight in my music career so far!
Please choose 2-3 of your works and tell us more about them.
I'm fortunate to have had several of my works recorded and performed at a relatively young age. Here are some of my favourites.
Firstly, of course, the work I wrote for the 2023 At The World's Edge Festival, under the guidance of my mentor Salina Fisher. The work is called "Maramataka" (which loosely translates to 'Māori lunar calendar') and it explores the journey of the moon across the night sky, intertwined with themes drawn from Māori beliefs and practices (such as Matariki - the Māori new year, and Whiro-te-tipua - the Māori Lord of Darkness). The work is for French horn, violin and cello - an unusual and challenging combination of instruments to work with, but one that I think works well in this intimate context. This is by far the longest I've spent writing a piece (July-September 2023) as I really wanted to take the time to craft something with a clear 'narrative' that would intrigue and delight both the performers and listeners of it.
Secondly, one of my favourite works of mine, "A Day In The Village" (2021). It's a commission (in fact, it was my first ever commission!) from New Zealand violinist Rakuto Kurano, who was a delight to collaborate with. I grew up in a village in the Nelson/Tasman region called Māpua, so the piece embodies the small community lifestyle I was constantly surrounded by, as well as the charming and quaint 'hustle and bustle' of village life. It took me about three weeks to write, and it was performed during Rakuto's DUPLEXITY South Island tour of early 2022.
Finally, one of the bigger pieces I've written (in terms of ensemble size), "A Music Everywhere" - the brass band version! It's an arrangement of my first ever published composition, "A Music Everywhere" (an SSA choral work completed in 2020), commissioned by the National Youth Brass Band of New Zealand, whom I played with in 2021. Taking a small-scale choral work and expanding it for a much larger ensemble was a really interesting task, especially as it was my first time writing a substantial brass band piece. Also, as a percussionist, writing fun and engaging percussion parts was a big goal of mine when doing the arrangement!
What are you working on at the moment? (If you can’t talk about that yet: what have you completed recently and when will people be able to hear it?
At the time of writing this, the university semester is coming to an end, therefore my four current composition projects are almost fully completed. I'm working on an unaccompanied SSAATTBB choral work called "Putirā" (Māori for 'Sunflower') which is my first choral work to employ my own text; a brass band commission for Darebin City Brass called "Spiritus Aeris" (Latin for 'The Spirit of Brass'); a score for a 5-minute-long animated/psychological-drama student film called "You Are Not Asleep"; and a wind symphony work called "Voyager". Quite a variety of things to be working on, but I look forward to them being released in the coming months.
Over the summer break, I have a couple of projects lined up, including writing a jazz ensemble piece for my alma mater, Nelson College for Girls. I'll also be working on a couple of choral works to be performed in early 2025. I would love to do some more composing for multimedia/cross-disciplinary works to develop my skills in writing for dance and writing for film, and perhaps expand into writing for theatre and television and such as well.
How can people contact you?
I would love to hear from you, whether it's to share your thoughts on my work, enquire about a commission, or something just for fun!
My website is: https://www.georginapalmer.com/.
I post regularly on YouTube and other social media channels, giving insight and sharing the 'behind the scenes' of my creative work.