Recent performances, awards and successes

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!

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.

Plenty of music for Music Month

Well it's the last day of NZ Music Month, so that's a good excuse to post about a few projects I've been working on lately. I've been a bit quiet online in recent months so here's a good chance to make up for that.

Picture This! is a new work I've written for the Long Bay College Concert Band. They won gold at the KBB Music Festival last year so a new work had to take shape! I spent last weekend with them at their rehearsal camp and had loads of fun. Look out for Picture This! at this year's festival.

My friends at Diocesan School for Girls have commissioned two new works for their groups:

I ask of you no poetry is for their award-winning elite choir, St Cecelia Singers, and is written for SSA choir, handbells and organ (with text by Madeleine Ballard). Kiwi in Appalachia is for their chamber ensemble consisting of flute, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, 2 violins, viola and piano (cello part also available). It's a standalone piece but for this group was written to be used in conjunction with my arrangement of Copland's Appalachian Spring. I'm hoping to get along to see some rehearsals soon and will post some performance dates when available.

I have also just written Unwrapped for the St Matthew's Chamber Orchestra which was premiered last Sunday. I've written about it here, check it out.

Back in April was the 48Hour Film Festival and although we didn't get far this year with our film, On The Rocks, it was great to work with the guys from Sideways Productions once again. The music turned out nicely (finally, I got to use almost all strings!) and I later arranged it into a one movement work - listen here:

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Another film by these guys that I did the music for, Sounds Perfect, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival during May - I posted about it here, check it out.

In conducting news I had a great weekend down at the Bay of Plenty Music School working with the concert band. I was so happy with the standard they reached - read about my weekend here. I'm also currently working with the Auckland Symphony Chorus - preparing them for the Auckland Symphony Orchestra's hugely popular "Night of the Proms" concerts at the end of June. Great to have "Song of the Lonely Mountain" as part of the programme - a song I did the preparation of for "The Hobbit" movie two years ago.

That's all for now. A few other projects on the go, but I'll save those for a future post!

"Sounds Perfect" at Cannes

I am deeply honoured that Sounds Perfect, a film that I wrote the music for and that has already appeared at a number of festivals, has now been selected for the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival in France this month.

The film, an adults-only comedy, was made for the inaugural Tropfest NZ Festival in 2012 and was a finalist, winning several awards. It has since gone on to play at about seven festivals around the world.

Dave Dobson is a self -proclaimed 'audio enhancement engineer' in the film industry. While his uninspiring workmates are happy to churn out the same clichéd slaps and squelches film after film, Dave hears a higher calling.

I put the music together in a matter of hours (they got it to me a day before it was due) and it definitely isn't characteristic of any other writing I've done but it makes me laugh and serves the film well.

It's amazing how we creators just do what we do and then sometimes a film just gets picked up and has a life of its own.

Cannes takes the cake, but it is also about to screen in the:

• Wet Your Pants Comedy Film Festival in Indianapolis
• Iron Mule Comedy Series in New York
• LA Comedy Ninja Film Festival

Congrats to the Sideways Team (www.sidewaysproductions.co.nz). Bring on our next project!