Tag Archives: composer

A month of New Zealand music

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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

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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.

Making music in Rotorua

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It is always fun gathering at the beginning of a weekend with a new group of people and by the end of it presenting a concert of great music. That was the case this weekend at another Bay of Plenty Music School.

Combined orchestras performing "Westside Story"

Combined orchestras performing "Westside Story"

Combined orchestras and choir performing "A Te Tarakihi"

I had a wonderful group of players, we worked hard and had fun putting the music together.

At the informal concert on Saturday night we performed the crowd pleasers:

  • Prokofiev – Triumphal March from ‘Peter and the Wolf’
  • Barry Gray – Thunderbirds

On the Sunday concert we performed:

  • Khachaturian – Armenian Dances
  • Ryan Youens – Bubble
  • Rossini – William Tell Overture (Allegro Vivace)
  • Bernstein/Sondheim - West Side Story (combined with orchestra)
  • Trad. – A Te Tarakihi (combined with orchestra and choir)

It was a pleasure to work with fellow conductors Peter Watts and Peter Thomas - thanks for your support. Thanks to my brilliant wind orchestra players and to those who organised the very successful weekend.

Opening up an orchestra

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Last Sunday we had loads of fun at the first of the Auckland Philharmonia open days for 2012.

We were at the Bruce Mason Centre in Auckland and you would have found me in the “meet the composer” room. Loads of people came through and some came back three or four times as they had a new idea to add to our “Open Day” composition.

We talked about what composers do and how our ideas make it to the orchestra’s music stands. Many people had a go on Sibelius and were blown away at what it can do and what we could do with their musical ideas.

THIS SUNDAY we do it all again:

“Meet the APO and hear all the instruments, in a fun family day. Hear us rehearse and perform excerpts from Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony, join in activities to make simple percussion instruments, listen up close to individual players and hear the 200 strong chorus taking part in Sing with the APO. The orchestra and ensembles of APO musicians perform throughout the afternoon.”

TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre, Manukau, free admission. Click here to find out more details.

Come down and say hi, I look forward to seeing you!

BOP music school hits Rotorua!

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The Bay of Plenty Music School is about to make some music once again!

This year the school is happening between April 13th to 15th in Rotorua. It is an opportunity for choral, orchestral and band musicians to work on some fantastic repertoire in a relaxed environment.

I conducted there last year and it really is a wonderful weekend, meeting some great people, eating some great food and making some fantastic music together.

This year Peter Watts is conducting the choir, Peter Thomas the symphony and chamber orchestras and myself the wind orchestra (concert band/symphonic band…).

In the wind orchestra we will be working on:

  • Rossini – William Tell Overture
  • Prokofiev – Triumphal March from ‘Peter and the Wolf’
  • Ryan Youens – Bubble
  • Bernstein/Sondheim - West Side Story, ‘selections’
  • Khachaturian – Armenian Dances
  • Barry Gray – Thunderbirds
  • Philip Norman – The Ballad of Settler McGee
  • Kamen – Robin Hood Prince of Thieves Suite

It should be another very enjoyable weekend finishing with a concert on Sunday afternoon. If you are interested in attending I would love to see you there. Enrollments need to be in by Monday 2nd April so visit the music school website and download the information and enrollment details.

An opportunity to make the floor rumble

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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.

Working on workshops

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It has been an enjoyable start to the year presenting some workshops around Auckland.

“Sibelius in education” – professional development day

On Friday 24th February I had the first session at a professional development day for secondary music teachers. We looked at how to use Sibelius effectively in education and checked out all of the features that are going to help both them and students use the program to its potential. The next two sessions were by Philip Norman, looking at the life and music of Douglas Lilburn and a session on composition titled “Composition can’t be taught… but techniques to help it on its way can”.

“What’s new in Sibelius 7 and education feature supercharge” – Faculty of Education

On Wednesday 15th March I worked with the new music teacher graduates at Auckland University’s Faculty of Education. They had learnt Sibelius on version 6 so before they headed out in to the schools we looked at what was new and different in version 7 and also checked out a number of the fantastic education features that makes Sibelius a joy to use in the classroom.

The next composers… – secondary schools

I have also been working at two secondary schools with composition students. Developing their own compositions as well as workshops on string writing and developing an idea through a composition.

“Meet the composer!” - APO Open Day

On a related note, coming up this Sunday is the Auckland Philharmonia Open Day and you’ll find me in the “meet the composer” room. Find out what composers do and how our ideas make it to the orchestra’s music stands; try out the Sibelius notation software and add your ideas to our “Open Day” composition – see you there!

Photo courtesy of www.apo.co.nz.

2011 through the eyes of a blog

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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:

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!