A month of New Zealand music

Posted on May 1, 2012 by ryanyouens

New Zealand Music Month is here again. Make sure you get out and enjoy some New Zealand Music – well, more than usual, I hope!

You may remember for last year’s Music Month I wrote 31 microscores in 31 days. It was a huge success and loads of fun. Check out this post to read about the project or listen to the microscores.

This year I don’t quite have a project like that ready to go, but here are some events that my music is involved with this Music Month:

3rd May: William Green performs This Day this Thursday

As part of Auckland Central Library’s FREE Thursday lunchtime concert series, William is playing my piece, This Day, as part of his “NZ piano music of the 2000s” concert.

Thursday 3rd May, 12:10pm until 1pm. Whare Wānanga, Level 2, Central City Library, 44-46 Lorne Street – don’t be late, my piece opens the concert. Click here for the lunchtime concert series brochure.

9th May: Auckland Philharmonia Tiraki read-through

The Auckland Philharmonia reads through the first drafts of my piece, Tiraki, written for the orchestra and the Auckland Town Hall organ. You may like to check out my post on the project or my photos from a recent tour of the organ.

18th – 20th May: Making music for V48 Hours

I will be working again with Sideways Productions, making music for their production. You may like to see my post from last year’s film.

31st May: Hook Line and Sing-along

Every year the NZ Music Commission runs a competition for school students to write a song for Music Month. The song is sung by schools across New Zealand at 12pm on the last day of Music Month. The idea is to get as many people singing together as possible – for fun and to focus on the fundamental pleasures of life, music, and the importance of music education.

This year the song is 21 Degrees by Bruce Taiapa. I typeset the lead sheet and created an arrangement for a variety of instruments so instrumentalists can play along with the track as well.

Download everything you need here.

Have a good month.

Checking out the pipes

Posted on April 20, 2012 by ryanyouens

The Auckland Town Hall Organ is mightily impressive, mind-blowing, even enough to take your breath away! Hours before the first drafts of my APO + Auckland Town Hall Organ composition were due, Kerry Stevens gave me a tour. Amazing. Here are some of my photos.

Here are some facts from the organ’s very own website:

The Auckland Town Hall Organ weighs 40 tonnes, the pipes alone account for 28 tonnes.
Number of pipes: 5391, of which 939 have been restored from the 1911 organ.
Largest pipe: bottom C of the 32-foot Open Wood: 9.75 metres high (32 feet) with an interior volume of 2600 litres. The note sounded by this pipe has a fundamental frequency of 16 Hz.
Smallest pipe: speaking length 6mm (the pipe itself is quite a bit bigger than this to make it possible to handle!)
Lowest frequency note: bottom C of the Pedal Gravissima stop, 8 Hz. (The entire bottom octave of this stop is below the limit of human hearing: it is felt rather than heard).
Highest frequency: 17kHz from the Swell Furniture.
Loudest stop: equal place to the 16′ Ophicleide in the Pedal organ and the Orchestral Trumpet in the Solo. The largest pipe in the Ophicleide rank has a diameter of 349.1mm at the top.
The three electric blowers in the basement deliver a wind flow of 209 cubic metres per minute, into 320 metres of wooden wind trunking (the length of three football fields), into 23 bellows loaded with four tonnes of weights, and then into 18 main wind-chests: ready to blow through one pipe or hundreds at once.
Most pipes operate on a wind pressure of 3 inches (water gauge). Highest wind pressure: 15 inches.
The organ was built by a team of 42 personnel from Klais Orgelbau over a period of 26 months, taking around 27,000 man-hours. The chief designer of the organ was Stefan Hilgendorf.

An opportunity to make the floor rumble

Posted on March 21, 2012 by ryanyouens

It’s not often that you can make the floor rumble but when the powers of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Auckland Town Hall Organ combine, I might just have that opportunity!

I am very happy to be one of the six composers writing a work for these two forces. One of the great things about these APO composer workshops is the process – there are three workshops with the orchestra during this year, followed by the premiere in May 2013. The first is in May and most of us I’m sure will just trial ideas, versions, sections and so on.

The other composers are Robbie Ellis, Anthony Young, David Hamilton, Chris Adams and Ben Hoadley.

My organist is James Tibbles, the Associate Head of Performance at Auckland University and of course one of New Zealand’s leading keyboardists.

My piece has a working title of “Tiraki” – a Maori verb meaning to clear the sky, or lift away the clouds. I hope to use this idea to characterise the music and explore different layering and texturing within the orchestra.

Keep up with this blog for updates on the project as it progresses. Also, check out the Auckland Town Hall organ and the Auckland Philharmonia websites.

2011 through the eyes of a blog

Posted on December 30, 2011 by ryanyouens

And just like that, another year is gone! Here is a look at my posts for the year.

The blogging year started in March with my favourite book arriving, “Behind Bars”, which I preordered in 2010. It is definitely the most used book on my shelf! I then talked about two approaching projects:

In April I introduced my new work, “blimp”, and reviewed two projects – a song I helped a friend create and my work at the BOP music school:

May was a busy month, so in June I talked about what I had been up to – writing 31 microscores and the premiere of “blimp”:

In July I posted the video I worked on with Sideways Productions:

48 hours to say “Goodbye Gilbert”

In August and September I covered my involvement in the KBB Music Festival and some composition tutorials that I held in Kerikeri:

October was the kick off of the Rugby World Cup here in New Zealand, I talked about my involvement in the opening ceremony and also made a post about what exactly I do when “preparing music” and why you would need someone like me to do it:

December means Christmas and I posted some Christmas carols that I prepared for my students. I also composed a new “holiday” piece for my Christmas post:

Happy New Year everyone, bring on 2012!

“blimp” lands in Auckland

Posted on June 19, 2011 by ryanyouens

My new work for orchestra, “blimp”, finally landed in Auckland on the 1st of May – premiered by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra at the Auckland Town Hall. It is a short work commissioned by the orchestra and their conductor Peter Thomas. It received a second performance on the 8th of May at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna. This was followed by its inclusion in their “Proms” concerts on the 18th and 19th of June. A great first month and a half for a new work!

The orchestra during soundcheck before the premiere. Photo by Keri Moyle (www.signsoflife.co.nz).

“Blimp [noun] a small, non-rigid airship or dirigible, especially one used chiefly for observation.”

The idea I tried to portray is that for me I think of blimps as being slightly odd, awkward to get off the ground and driven by men who are a little loopy; but, once in the air, they jauntily go about their purpose.

The brass during soundcheck before the premiere. Photo by Keri Moyle (www.signsoflife.co.nz).

I was extremely happy with the performance, the orchestra did a wonderful job and loved playing it. It was also great to get such positive feedback from the audience after all four concerts.

Watch the live performance from 8th May here:

Or listen to a good audio recording here:

The orchestra and Auckland Town Hall during soundcheck before the premiere. Photo by Keri Moyle (www.signsoflife.co.nz).

blimp, for orchestra

Posted on April 5, 2011 by ryanyouens

My new piece for orchestra, blimp, began rehearsals last night. It was commissioned for the Auckland Symphony Orchestra by their conductor, Peter Thomas. It will be premiered at the Auckland Town Hall and Bruce Mason Centre in their May “Up, Up and Away!” concerts.

Inspiration was drawn from the concert theme and with a little help from some friends, blimps seemed an ideal title and topic.

Blimp [noun] a small, non-rigid airship or dirigible, especially one used chiefly for observation.

For me, I think of blimps as being slightly odd, awkward to get off the ground and driven by men who are a little loopy; but, once in the air, they jauntily go about their purpose. I love this idea, and the music hopefully portrays this in its short two minute duration.

The concert also features Die Fledermaus Overture, Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 featuring Hong Yul Yang, Jupiter from “The Planets”, two great movie soundtracks – “Up” by Michael Giacchino and “E.T.” by John Williams – and much more.

Concert 1: Auckland Town Hall, Sunday 1st May, 2:30pm, FREE.

Concert 2: Bruce Mason Centre (Takapuna), Sunday 8th May, 2:30pm, FREE (but ticketed).

It is of course in May, New Zealand Music Month, so you should be overdosing in musical activities – make this one of them. Look forward to seeing you there!

KBB Music Festival 2010, thumbs up

Posted on August 30, 2010 by ryanyouens

As of last night, the 2010 KBB Music Festival is officially over. Today I’m sure many musical directors are joining me in breathing a well-earned sigh of relief.

If you’re wondering what I am talking about, here’s what the festival website has to say:

“For the past 25 years, the KBB Music Festival, in association with The Edge® Public Programmes, has been showcasing the best in secondary school orchestras, concert bands and jazz bands in Auckland. From the small numbers in the original Auckland Secondary Schools Band and Orchestra Festival, the KBB Music Festival has now grown to see over 100 groups competing from more than 40 schools across the greater Auckland region.”

It was a fantastic few days of music. I saw two full days out of the four days of the festival. Always interesting to see what others are doing, taking a mental note of ideas for next years’ possibilities and also observing how others lead their groups.

I had three groups competing in the festival this year – the Carmel Chamber Orchestra, Carmel Orchestra and the Kristin Symphonia. All did reasonably well and each picked up a Bronze award at last night’s (three hour epic) gala concert.

On the last day I had the pleasure of working with four groups at the Fringe Festival. These are groups under development or not quite meeting the full festival requirements. The whole point is to provide encouragement and constructive feedback to get them primed, pumped and ready for year ahead.

Big thanks to administrator and chairperson David Squire for another seamlessly run festival and for his eighteen years on the committee. This was his last year of involvement with the festival. Also, of course, much thanks to these two:

Wild Daisies premiere

Posted on July 12, 2010 by ryanyouens

Last year Kristin School commissioned a piece from me for their amazing award-winning choir, Euphony, to include in their 2010 repertoire. They premiered it at the Auckland Town Hall on Wednesday 16th June 2010. See the video below:

It uses the text from Bub Bridger’s poem, Wild Daisies.

The choir was once again successful in getting through to The Big Sing Finale, along with many other choirs from around New Zealand. You can see the full list of these choirs at The Big Sing website.

Wild Daisies is notated for SSA choir and if anyone is interested in buying a copy please let me know.

Ryan Youens

music composer, copyist, arranger

Tag Archives: auckland town hall