Moana Ataahua programme launched

(courtesy of www.taupofest.co.nz)

If Lake Taupo was a piece of music, what would it sound like?

New Zealand composer Ryan Youens’ mass musical work, commissioned especially for ERUPT 2010 through the SOUNZ Community Commission, takes its inspiration from the people and places of Taupo.

Featuring lyrics submitted by local writers, Moana Ataahua is a spectacular mix of symphonic, choral and percussive elements that will erupt into an exciting finale.

Drawing together musicians from Taupo Choral Society, Tauhara College Choir, Great Lake Big Band, Taupo Youth Wind Band, Taupo Concert Band, and Tauhara College Stage Band, a 150-strong ensemble will premiere Moana Ataahua in the picturesque surrounds of the Unison Amphitheatre on the banks of the Waikato River.

Auckland-based Youens has arranged for concerts, films and publishing, including arrangements on Rhian Sheehan’s soundtrack for TV2’s The Cult, and his own compositions have been performed throughout New Zealand, Europe and South America.

Bring your cushions and rugs, enjoy the blaze of autumn colours and celebrate the spirit and beauty of Taupo.

  • Saturday 8 May, 2 – 3.30pm
  • Weather postponement: Sunday 9 May, 2 – 3.30pm
  • Duration: 1.5 Hours.
  • Venue: Unison Amphitheatre Riverside Park
  • Price: FREE

SOUNZ supported composition for ERUPT 2010

(written for, and published at ERUPT Festival blog, 22 December 2009 – image courtesy of www.taupofest.co.nz)

The SOUNZ Community Commission (www.sounz.org.nz) is supporting a new piece from me for the 2010 ERUPT Lake Taupo Festival. This is a fantastic project which I am very happy to be involved with. The piece is written for the community and they will perform it. It also involves text written by those in the community.

The piece is currently being written and although I don’t want to give much away … it will certainly be a celebration of Taupo. I have always loved Taupo and have stayed there many times. Recently when I visited Taupo to meet many of the musical groups there, I was completely blown away by the amount of musical activity. This alone is reason to celebrate.

The lake and the river will help to characterise the work, which will involve numerous groups from the community, who will be announced publicly later.

I have been involved with several projects writing for community groups and so I have enjoyed hitting this one with full force. Writing music is what I do full-time – as well as copying and arranging other peoples music. I also conduct several groups in Auckland. For any more info, or for my blog, see www.ryanyouens.com.

I look forward to this project evolving further, and for it to explode into ERUPT 2010!

Heedless Conclusions … the week in review

Well, last Sunday my new piece “Heedless Conclusions” was premiered by The Souls, who are a chamber choir here in Auckland. It was quite a week actually.

I turned up to the first rehearsal, all set to relax and listen to all the wonderful work they had been doing, when they dragged me in to sing. Very happy to, especially to make everything well balanced, but gee, I haven’t sung in a choir in years. lol Anyway it was absolutely wonderful. Of course I made it to the rest of their rehearsals for the week, and because of that I learnt so much about my piece that I never would have known otherwise. Partly by simply singing a part by myself, but also just going through the choir on that final journey. It was marvelous.

The acoustic where the concert was held was very wet!! Anything said, just bounces around for seconds after … wonderfully exciting. I wrote the piece with this in mind, so there were some magic moments to make the most of it. So anyway, dress rehearsal was fantastic and I couldn’t wait for the concert.

Concert came, and … just amazing. It’s a piece that flows very nicely in some ways, but has a few twists and turns that can easily catch you. But they caught no one and the audience loved it, the players seemed to enjoy putting it together and said it was well worth the effort. I think I was spoilt coming in right at the end, after all the hard work was put in, just to experience the choir finally understand it as a piece and start to really enjoy singing it.

Well the score is now available at SOUNZ, go check out … you’ll love it. When I have the recording back I’ll put a sample up also.

NZSO / SOUNZ Readings May 2008

Hey everyone.

Well last weekend Wendy and I headed down to Wellington for this year’s readings with the NZSO. It started with a lovely weekend, we chilled, ate great food and experienced Wellington. Then it was Monday.

I was first up in the morning session and so all the players were fresh and ready for anything. “Rakaia” is not too much of a challenging piece, although plenty of notes for the strings. First read through they did fantastically well. The huge brass and percussion sound was just fantastic. After working with Ken Young and clarifying a few things both he and I wanted to work on, they pulled it apart a little and started work. Was wonderful seeing them work on my music once again. This piece is very clearly written and is enjoyable for the players and this definitely show through the rehearsal.

Later in the day was the recording session. After the long day this final run through and recording wasn’t as tight as they had it earlier in the morning, but still a remarkable performance.

I had wonderful feedback from the players. Complimenting the colourful textures, energy and effective writing. Also a comment about the likeliness of this piece to the music of Don Davis. A bit of a surprise, but came from a guy who used to play in Don Davis’ scoring orchestra, so I gratefully took his word.

The rest of the workshops were enjoyable. Was nice to get mine out of the way. Monday had a selection of other young composers which were shorter works. All very different and extremely well written. Tuesday had two longer works.

Check out photos from the workshops here.

Thanks heaps to SOUNZ and the NZSO for the wonderful two days.

View from Olympus

Tonight was the launch of John Psathas’ new CD View from Olympus featuring three concerti recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with Pedro Carneiro (Percussion), Michael Houstoun (Piano) and Joshua Redman (Saxophone). Of course I had to get a CD straight away. Included is a DVD called Creating View from Olympus. WOW WOW WOW. I’m very familiar with the View from Olympus concerto and reasonably familiar with the others, but listening to this recording is as if they are new works. The standard is incredible. It is the biggest recording project ever undertaken here in New Zealand, and is absolutely amazing.

View from Olympus Album Cover

If there is one CD you have to get, it is this one. It is put out by Rattle Records, also available through SOUNZ, and for any more info I VERY VERY VERY STRONGLY RECCOMMEND you to go to www.viewfromolympus.com.

NZSO/TODD Readings

Well well well. The latest NZSO/TODD young composer readings were great. They were on 7th and 8th September at Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington. The event opened with a dinner with the sponsers and also representatives from SOUNZ, Concert FM and the NZSO. This was fantastic to catch up with other composers who flew in from out of town for the workshops, but also of course to talk with people from the various organisations.

So … the workshops. There were some really outstanding pieces. Of course there is never enough time to properly rehearse the pieces, but most came out sounding really great. My piece was … good. It was a really hard piece, and I was really pleased how some bits were sounding, but disappointed about other parts. I’m happy with how the parts were written, it was more about having enough time to tighten things up with the orchestra. Anyway it should be a reasonable recording I get back from it so fingers crossed. It was commended at the end of the workshops so am pleased with that.

The workshop was brilliantly organised once again by Penny Miles. The new additions this year, sessions with instrumentalists and and the NZSO librarian were great. It was a great few days and I look forward until next year.