Here's an update on happenings over the last little while - mostly other people's successes that I played a small part in. It was great to see a recent post on the SOUNZ Facebook page about the recording of Robert Burch's "Essay to the memory of Dmitri Shostakovich" in Wellington (photo above) by Richard Mapp (piano) and Andrew Joyce (cello). I typeset this back in January for SOUNZ and I can't wait to hear how it has come together with these two amazing performers.

Back on October 30th was the annual APRA Silver Scroll awards and it was a huge pleasure to have worked on the scores of two of the finalists for the SOUNZ Contemporary Award - "Inner Phases" (for the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra and the NZ String Quartet) by Michael Norris and "Solstice" (recorded by the NZSO) by Leonie Holmes. Congrats to Michael for taking the title! Also, Victoria Kelly well-deservedly won best score for "Field Punishment No.1" - a score I worked on through the night, tucked up in an Auckland hotel - long story.

The Show Me Shorts film festival was recently in NZ and the Sideways Productions film, "Sounds Perfect", continued its run at festivals - following appearances at Cannes and Austin earlier this year. Meanwhile, I've been working with the guys on a new film which I'll keep you posted about - it's a goodie!

$Trumpet part from \"Ganglife\" the musical, by Josiah Carr. Photo by Peter Jennings.$

Two years ago I had the pleasure of seeing the results of an extraordinary feat by Josiah Carr... writing a musical... while still at school. Well he's done it again with "Ganglife: The Musical" and this time I helped him out with the part preparation. The show was fantastic and here's one of the parts in action.

Ben Hoadley is a master bassoonist but also a master composer and I've set a number of his works over the past few years. Two recent ones were "Midsummer Night Music" (clarinet, oboe, piano) for Sydney's Omega Ensemble and "Black Forrest" for bass oboe and harp.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has let me know of my appearance in the December Air New Zealand magazine. When opening a feature article on Taupo it mentions my work "Moana Ataahua" which was written as part of the SOUNZ Community Commission initiative and premiered by the community at the 2010 ERUPT Lake Taupo Festival.

That's all for now. I'm so lucky to work with incredibly talented people and seeing them succeed highly is so, so, so great.