When I approached this piece I had an image in my mind of an iced over lake,

its scarred surface stretched over blue water.

Forms are pressed u...

This work features virtuosic writing for the soloist along with a colourful orchestral part. In four movements, it explores a wide range of moods and styles....

'Puanga’ is the star known to astronomers as Rigel and appears in the north eastern horizon in late May or early June. It is the brightest star in the conste...

Ákri is Briar's first orchestral piece to be premiered in her career as a composer, and was part of Orchestra Wellington's Mentorship Program, with the mento...

A smorgasboard of the viola repertoire - solo, orchestral and chamber music. Hilarious and fun - you've never heard 12 violas sound like this before!

Produced by Owen Hughes and directed by Niki Caro

Commissioned by the North Canterbury Academy of Music this work is ideal for a massed performance of young performers up to year 9, and is scored for voices,...

An extract from Wenceslas (1992) a cantata for choir and orchestra by Philip Norman, commissioned by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, setting the words...

‘Ekimmaras’ is inspired by the dark fantasy world of Andrzej Sapkowski’s ‘The Witcher’. David writes, “Ekimmaras are terrifying bat-like bipedal creatures w...

Sintel is a short film score by Matthew Beardsworth, composed to the Blender short animated film (dir. Colin Levy) of the same name. The film tells the tra...

An orchestral suite inspired by the Baroque keyboard suites of Handel and Bach, the four movements of Garden Varieties, all allude to the various, typical in...

"There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death, or one of...

Sakura Trees was written for a 2nd year composition assignment at Otago University, where the task was to write an orchestral piece on the subject of 'Images...

The World War I Sanctuary is a public space, but also a very personal one for the many people who have their family name inscribed on the walls. The dignity ...

PDF score & parts available at: www.salinafisher.com/rainphase.

For quite some time, the beauty and chaos of Wellington rain has inspired me to respo...

When I arrived at the Royal College of Music in London, in September 1937, and was accepted as a student by Vaughan Williams, he put me through routine disci...

The Way Out Is Through is an orchestral transcription of inharmonic spectra evolving through time, the sound source being a swell played on a 22-inch ride cy...

Whales have long been one of my favourite mammals, and I have always felt greatly aggrieved when I hear of the slaughter of these huge and gentle creatures. ...

The Double Concerto was designed to explore the unusal combination of solo instruments, extend the soloists and, at the same time, be performable by region...

I wrote the work in the turbulent year of 1968 while I was undergoing graduate studies in composition at the University of Toronto with the prominent Canadia...

Water flows between the Great Lakes cities of Detroit and Toronto, where I live. Looking at the map, I am reminded of the powerful work of Ojibway Elder Jose...

The concerto presented the composer with the added challenge of achieving a balanced sound-world between the guitar and the orchestra. Marshall specifically ...

Music for a feature film produced by Geoff Murphy and Don Blakeney. and directed by Geoff Murphy. Utu - suite for orchestra (1987) was drawn from this film...

The 'seven last words' of Christ are the final statements Chris made as he endured the crucifixion. They are found through the four Gospels although none of ...

The title Cirrus is taken from the first stanza of James K. Baxter’s poem, High Country Weather (1948).

Alone we are born And die alone Yet see the...

This piece has essentially become a journey – a journey to nowhere in particular, but one that is filled with a lot of variation along the way. The title fo...

When a pale blue dot breathes, a crowd of cacophony begins is celebrating its 30th anniversary of the first picture taken of the famous image 'Pale blue do...

The story of "The Radish and the Shoe" was created by French Canadian artist Louise Jalbert and set to music by Andrew Perkins. Jalbert's book won the Parent...

I have many reasons to thank Peter Nisbet, the General Manager of the NZ Symphony, who, through the 70s and 80s, passed a series of commissions my way.

H...

Two Issues Songs was composed in 1990 for the Chilton Saint James Choir at the request of their Musical Director Mrs. Susie Hunter. The words for both _Nuc...

Ko te tātai whetū was originally commissioned by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, as a [concerto for taonga puoro and orchestra](https://www.sounz.org....

In 1975 when Shostakovich died I was in the fourth form at St Bedes College and already hooked on the music of the Russian genius. When the death notice appe...

An orchestral version of this work exists as Anniversary Suite No. 1, written for Wellington Youth Orchestra.

The Three Pictures were commissioned by the Wairarapa Singers (conducted by Ian Hodge) and premiered in 2000 in a version for organ, string quartet, flute ...

A meditation on 'Reis Glorios', a 12th century troubadour love song, for orchestral brass, timpani, tam tam and bass drum.

–PN

Transcendental Fragments, for wind trio, is a short piece based on musical fragments from the composer's concerto for orchestra entitled Transcend which ...

_“I enjoyed playing the first performance of 'An Irksome Vengeance' with Yvette. The piece explores quite complex rhythmic patterns at a high level of expert...

Climate change is something that I feel very strongly about. With 2016 becoming the hottest year on record, glaciers melting around the world, storms becomin...

This is pure program music. I wanted to write a sort of New Zealand Till Eulenspiegel and chose four Māui legends. Although I am not a great admirer of Richa...

Faced with the choice of writing a fanfare in a similar “heroic” style as Copland’s, or in a contrasting mode, Norman chose the latter, taking as his source ...

Vincent O’Sullivan’s poem 'Homecoming - Te Hokinga Mai' was commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Culture and Heritage to mark the dedication of the To...

When I chanced upon a copy of the book The Dragons are Singing Tonight I was immediately entranced by the poems and struck by their possibility for musical...

From the Southern Marches was the brain-child of George Griffiths, historian and owner of Otago Heritage Books in Dunedin. He writes: 'For many years I'd p...

Symphonic Reflections is an orchestral presentation of nine poems by Michael Harlow. It was planned (as were a long series of works before it) in consultat...

Winner of the 2023 SOUNZ Contemporary Award.

Requiem is a work that I’ve been contemplating for 30 years. I think it exists because I’ve never been able t...

Orchestral instrument version available here

Brass band instrument version available here