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Jenny McLeod’s vibrant and youthful Little Symphony, written while the composer was still a student, is a response to Stravinsky’s Symphony in C. It is paired with Douglas Lilburn’s Symphony no. 2 probably New Zealand’s most well known and loved example of symphonic writing.

My selection stretches the notion of performance. Each work enacts a sonic or narrative concept, with a sense of heightened ritual, an economy of means, a containment of riches. 

The works vary in impact, from the visceral imitations of Celeste Oram’s funky Xerox Rock, and David Downes’ compellingly mysterious Generation, to the cool surgical precision of John Coulter’s Mouth Piece, and Miriama Young’s ethereal Inner. Repetition, in various forms, is a significant presence.

Guest curator: Eve de Castro-Robinson

This programme opens with John Rimmer’s short and fiery ‘Vulcan’ inspired by Auckland’s volcanic landscape. 

Commissioned by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra for the reopening of the Christchurch Town Hall, Chris Cree Brown’s dramatic ‘Phoenix’ follows. 

We end with Lyell Cresswell’s ‘Of Smoke and Bickering Flame’, a virtuosic, intense depiction of conflict between heaven and hell.

In Turanga-nui Gillian Whitehead considers the landfall of Cook in 1769, and of Māori centuries earlier, the feeling of finally standing on dry land after a long journey, and the danger of the inevitable collision of the two cultures. Ben Hoadley’s Turakirae was inspired by the rugged, open landscape of the Turakirae promontory, where the Rimutaka ranges begin. We finish the programme with Chris Adams’s Otira Gorge, an elemental depiction of the eponymous gorge in Arthur’s Pass, as pained by Petrus Van Der Velden.

In this programme, we journey to the depths of the sea. 

The first two works, Puhake ki te Rangi (Spouting to the Skies) by Gillian Whitehead, and Tohorah by Tristan Carter, are celebrations of whales and their song. 

The final work, Ross Harris’s The Abiding Tides, is a dramatic and sombre setting of poems by Vincent O’Sullivan about ships sinking at sea.

Natalie Hunt’s evocative Only to the Highest Mountain introduces this programme, followed by Gao Ping’s The Mountain which is inspired by the culture and folk stories of Sichuan, the composer’s birthplace. We finish with Gareth Farr’s Roar of a Thousand Tigers, a celebration of 100 years since the birth of SIr Edmund Hillary. The title is Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s description of the icy winds that buffet the uppermost slopes of Mount Everest.

These four works feature dances and dance forms. Leonie Holmes’s ‘Dance of the Wintersmith’ is inspired by Terry Pratchett’s book of the same name in which a young witch unwittingly disrupts the natural balance of the seasons by joining a supernatural Morris Dance. 

Helen Bowater’s ‘Gigue – a pataphor’ is a wild response to the Gigue in Bach’s Partita no. 3, while Gao Ping’s LefTango’ is an improvisatory exploration of the tango for the left hand alone. 

We end with Claire Cowan’s ‘Subtle Dances’ three short moods for piano trio, each featuring one of the three instruments of the group.