Margaret Nielsen

Margaret Nielsen was responsible for championing and performing piano works by many New Zealand composers – in particular, those of her friend and colleague, Douglas Lilburn. In 1967, for example, Douglas presented Margaret with a folder of piano pieces labelled 'Crotchety at 51!' He asked her to "Please see what you can make of these," and eventually nine were selected to make a comprehensive sequence. Margaret recorded these along with a good selection of Lilburn's other piano music on the CD, Douglas Lilburn, Piano Music. In Douglas's own words: "It has been a great incentive and privilege for me to compose music for a performer who so intuitively realised the sounds my manuscript notes were trying to formulate....Not only has she helped persuade me of the validity of my own search for authentic sounds, but she has made explicit and endeared to me the piano music of many of my composer colleagues."