Okay so over the last two months have had so much work coming in, I haven’t had a chance to post any blogs or in fact to much else at all. So what have I been doing?

Rakaia is a new piece I just finished last week for the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. It is for their “Rivers” concerts in August. For the dates and venues check out the news. The Rakaia river heads east from the Southern Alps here in New Zealand and reaches the sea just south of Christchurch. Thanks to my friend Wikipedia you can check out more details here. Anyway it was an interesting piece to write as the orchestra’s audience is not my usual type of audience. But anyway I ran through it all with the conductor Gary Daverne and he is happy so that’s good. Rehearsals start Monday night so will keep you posted. If you’re in Auckland on the concert dates, come along and I’d be so keen to get your post concert thoughts.

Chicken Cargo is an independent film based in Chicago. Scott Hunt is composing the score and I am orchestrating. The film is kind of a sci-fi comedy and the bits I’ve been seeing are quite good. We’re just finishing the opening scene at the moment and the whole “living on the other side of the world” thing is proving no problem at all. Anyway this is a long term project (film released mid ’08) and so will I’m sure be posting regular updates on how everything is going.

North Shore Junior Orchestra is a second orchestra I have picked up. It is a junior orchestra and so will be heaps of fun. Have got our programme all sorted and am about to do a mailout which will kick us off for term 3. I’ve just updated their website here.

Have also had a heap of engraving work which isn’t too strenuous but is time consuming. So its good to have work flocking in, and with very little sleep I’m managing to get through it all. Woohoo.