Well the craziest week of the year for Auckland school orchestras, chamber orchestras, jazz and concert bands, is that of the annual KBB festival. Gosh, it is busy. Last year I had the Kristin senior orchestra in, and it was my first year … so everything is still a little bit of a blur. I remember being just so horribly nervous. BUT we got a bronze award, something the orchestra had never received before.

This year I had three orchestras. WHAT FUN!! The first was the Carmel College Orchestra:

Conducting the Carmel College Orchestra at the KBB Festival

These guys were awesome. They were playing some tricky pieces and it all went fantastically well. My second biggest disaster of the day happened when I gave a very distinctive cue to the first violins at a place where I know they don’t count and it’s not clear what’s going on musically - they just wait for the cue, a whole two bars early. But thank goodness they entered correctly.

Next up was the Kristin Symphonia.

Conducting the Kristin Symphonia at the KBB Festival

 I had such a blast conducting these guys. With one down, I just relaxed and I could tell the players were also just having a great time on stage. Their programme also went wonderfully well.

Afterwards I was whisked away to the Carmel Chamber Orchestra who was warming up. While I was putting my favourite baton away … it snapped!! DISASTER!! It was my favourite baton, which I only use in concerts, got it from America, and has my name engraved. I couldn’t believe it. I sulked for a while, but since then however, I have had the superglue out, and it is like new … well maybe just a little bit wonky.

Well finally was the Carmel Chamber Orchestra. Was number three for me, it was 4:40pm and they had been there since 9:30am. But we got up there and gave it everything. Luckily we had some light numbers … a piece by Silvestri and one by the Beatles. They did very well and were well received by the audience, but maybe, like us, they just wanted to go home.

Well I was happy to get out of the venue at the end of the day. Being sandwiched in by hundreds of school kids all day is not to be desired. But was happy also that all my groups had done wonderfully well. Now I look forward to the results …

Hey everyone, well on the 29th May was The Committee’s 2008 Bangers and Mash concert. The point of these concerts is to have composers write music which doesn’t use any conventional notation or instruments … as well as no computers and can be playable by non-musicians. It was great to be involved and it was a fantastic success.

Initially I was completely stuck as what to actually do. I mean there are so many options … using anything that makes a cool sound. An obvious one would be doing something to vegetables. (lol) One night as I was traveling down to Wellington, Wendy (my partner) and I stopped to help a lady change her car tyre. Afterwards we got back in the car and soon after I said “I’VE GOT IT!!”.

So my piece was using five players, their spare car tyre and a pair of drum sticks. There was a set beginning and end, but then in the middle was much more freely organised. There were about six different sounds (or techniques), such as bouncing the stick on the tyre, rubbing it against the tyre to get a “squeaking” effect, and so on. There was a leader and they lead through each of these techniques. Overall creating these wonderful textures. It worked really well and was very well received.

The other pieces were fantastic as well, see below. Looking forward to doing more with “The Committee”.

For photos click here.

So the pieces were:

• “Gossip” by Yvette Audain (for spoken voices and used magazine headlines and quotes)
• “Tyred” by Ryan Youens
• “Kosurigami” by Anthony Young (was five of us making paper bangers, cranes and darts. Then either banging, flying or throwing them … fantastic)
• “Wishing Well” by Peter Willis (solo, dropping various elements into water)
• “Spotted snakes with double tongue” by Claire Scholes (using text from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and various items)

Hey everyone,

Well last night was Kristin School’s May Magic concert. It is their mid-year music extravaganza and last night it went fantastically well. It had everything from the year one and two choir, through to the senior award winning groups.

One of my orchestra’s, the Kristin Symphonia performed. It was our first big performance for the year. A few hairy moments, but went beautiful. I was so proud of them. Panning out to be a good year from them I think.

Photo link coming soon.

Well, yesterday I got back from the 2008 Opononi Summer School. Wow. What a week. I was conducting and it was my third year there.

It started off being one of the hottest weeks up there, after conducting each piece it felt like (and looked like) I had just run a marathon. But thankfully it cooled off a little as the week got on.

The first two days were basically just playing through ALOT of music. I think we had about 25 pieces out, covering classical, jazz, musicals, movies and so on. The group this year had such a great sound. No weak links in the flutes or clarinets, had three percussionists who were all VERY good, and a full bass section of two tubas, euphonium, four string basses, four trombones and two baritone saxes.

Scattered throughout the week of course were many talks, warmups and activities. One very successful activity was in groups performing the same short tune it in four different styles. VERY amusing, I shall put these videos up on YouTube soon. Also, it was great to let people have a turn at conducting. They could chose from three pieces, and then run it or rehearse it for a few minutes. They all did pretty good. lol In fact, one of the young girls gave the percussionists a good telling off for not keeping in time. SUPERB!!

Days three and four were a little more focused on the collection of pieces that would make the final concert. Some of the pieces were Bernstein’s Candide Overture, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, Bizet’s Carmen Suite, Eric Coates’ Dambusters March and a large 13 minute Charlie Chaplin suite. Some of the other pieces included suites from Cats and Fiddler on the Roof, John Williams Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, and some lighter numbers including Mamma Mia, The Flintstones and Big Band Classics.

It was an interesting week compared to normal, as everything and everyone was so relaxed. At some rehearsals, everyone seemed to be there 30 minutes beforehand, and yes, including the first morning when everyone was there ready to play at 5.30am for the 6am rehearsal. Another morning it was going to be a hot afternoon, so an extra long rehearsal meant more time in the afternoon to spend at the beach or reading in the sun … mmmm yes.

The pre-concert dinner was almost a non event. The gas cookers kindly stopped working 25 minutes before dinner was due. So the cars were packed up with the food and headed down to the local Copthorne hotel who very kindly cooked it in their facilities. Thank goodness. We had dessert first and when dinner arrived there was a very relieved bunch of hungry teenagers … in fact, everybody.

Well we made it to the concert, and what a concert it was. We performed 15 works, had two items and it all went so well. The cooler evening, shorter program than usual and fantastic standard of the players spouted comments from many saying it was the most enjoyable concert in years. The night ended with a mad scramble of returning music, getting others’ cellphone numbers and photos. Most went home, but some stayed for a final “Pooh” story and night at the Marae.

2009 brings the 25th year of Opononi and many fantastic ideas are floating around of how to celebrate. You shall have to stay tuned to find out exactly what those celebrations will be.

Some photos:

I HAD to put one of these classic shots up!

Me working them hard.

Setup.

The walk home.

Liz, Abbie and I.

Ray giving a quick talk before the concert.

Everybody.

Well well well, on the weekend my orchestra (www.nsjo.org.nz) had their end of year concert. It was fantastic. They sounded absolutely wonderful. They are 7-15 year olds and are very clever kids … but of course you never know how a concert is going to go. But gosh, couldn’t have hoped it to go better. Here are some photos: 

Hey everyone, well this week one of my orchestras, the Kristin Symphonia, performed at the KBB Music Festival at the Auckland Town Hall. They did very well indeed. There was some interesting acoustic problems going on as the timpani especially was positioned so far away. Generally though they did extremely well … the first movement from Dvorak’s Ninth in particular was superb.

In the end we got a BRONZE award. A little way off gold (we’re saving that for next year) but we are very happy with the result, as it is the first time in the orchestra’s history that they have received an award at the Festival.

It was my first Festival of this type, so listening to the other orchestras and seeing how everything works makes me excited about the prospects for next year.

Hey everyone, well after many hours of travelling and visiting people, we finally made it to Wellington. IT… IS… HOT…!! Oh my gosh it is hot. Not helped by the fact that we have MANY things to do around the city and how are we getting everywhere?? WALKING!! Anyway I shall get back on track:

Of course we are here for the Asia Pacific Festival and more importantly the premiere of my piece “Through my eyes, I hear”. In talking with the players in the last few weeks, Youri Jeon and Takumi Motokawa, I knew they were finding it hard. Of course, it is a hard piece. But I didn’t know what to expect at the first rehearsal. Anyway I got there and it was sounding FANTASTIC. We had another practice which also went really well, and got some good feedback from the players about the piece.

Then came concert day … today. This morning the piece fell apart in the dress rehearsal … just unorganised music etc, but that means a great performance right?? Indeed it does. The performance went really well. The odd place it got a little loose, but probably only I noticed. They got to the end and had a fantastic big finish. AWESOME!! Had some great feedback from people after the concert which of course was fantastic. Anyway I’ll do a post about the whole festival in a few days time.

cyas

Ryan

By the way … apologies about the lack of photos from my concert … I kind of forgot!!

Hey everyone, here goes a sum-up of this years summer school.

Before I start, anyone wondering what on earth I’m on about? The Opononi Music Summer School is for wind, brass and percussion players. We rehearse eight hours a day starting at 6am, then on the final night present a large concert of music for wind orchestra. I have been conducting there since 2006. It’s set at a great location at Omapere, in the Hokianga, Northland in New Zealand. Photo below:

Well as I’m sure most of you know, I was commissioned to write a new work for them this year. It was quite a workload, so at the beginning of the week I was lacking quite a lot of sleep. But thanks to the early ‘lights out’, I got back on track pretty quick. The first few days went as usual, rehearsing lots and lots of music. It was a little more relaxing this year as last year I took a tent up, but then a bad storm tore it to bits. So this year I slept inside and it was great.

It was interesting watching the development of my piece, Guardians of the North, with the players. The main point of the commission was really to introduce the players to new music, which almost all had not played before. So of course when they first saw the music, although it wasn’t too technically challenging, there were a few raised eyebrows. But we began by discussing it a lot and gradually everyone started to understand how things were working. By the end of the week they were really enjoying it, and they did a great job of giving its premiere.

For some reason, we seemed to run out of time this year. We got to friday and still had heaps of things we wanted to rehearse. But nevertheless, we made it to the concert and it sounded great. This year we recorded the concert live and have made a CD which I know a lot of the players are really excited about. In the concert we played popular classics like, Les Miserables, Star Wars: Phantom Menace Suite, and scores from other films, as well as works by Holst, Wagner, Faure and Bernstein.

Anyway it was another successful year. Below are a few photos, the first being a photo of everyone, the second being me conducting in the concert, and the last being a group shot from during the concert … sorry about the light quality in this last one.

Bye for now…

Well last night was this years NZSM Composers Competition Concert. It was … very interesting. I suppose I should start with my piece “No Ordinary Sun” - it was fantastic (of course I’d say that though). It was an extremely hard piece to put together for the performers, and it sounded great considering the amount of time that we had to put it together in. So they did extremely well. It was performed by far the best it ever has been, so I really couldn’t have asked for more. I think the complexity of the piece really paid off in portraying its nature and creating quite a unique sound world which I was pleased about. Had tonnes of great comments and feedback from various people afterwards, especially about the colours and stylistic elements of the piece, as well as the effectiveness of the percussion writing, so overall it was a good night. Anyway perhaps I shouldn’t say anything about the rest of the concert, except that Alexandra Hay’s piece was absolutely fantastic, I loved it, and it was the very well deserved and clear winner.

Well tonight I went to the 2006 NYO concert (NZ National Youth Orchestra). The first of three concerts, the others in Auckland and Christchurch. It was also the premiere of Claire Cowan’s new work “Trains of Thinking” (see her site here).

Anyway, WOW, concert was fantastic. The highlight by far was Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10. It was really well played. The strings this year are incredibly tight and are HUGE. I think I counted 12 violas. THATS AWESOME. The percussion as well was great - it’s a great symphony for the percussion. Anyway Claire’s piece was amazing. She’s always so original and innovative - absolutely loved the piece. Make sure you visit her site here.

Of course afterwards it was fantastic to catch up with everyone from years past.