A festival, a premiere, an award

My annual pilgrimage to the KBB Music Festival was a little more exciting this year. Firstly, a new premiere!

Grammar Virtuosi, from Auckland Grammar School, commissioned me to write a new work for strings and percussion this year to mark the anniversary of when Grammar men went to the battle of Passchendaele in the first world war. It's called Foray.

"foray: a sudden attack or incursion into enemy territory"

It's been great popping along to some of their rehearsals and working with them on the piece, once such occasional pictured above. Huge thanks to their director, James Donaldson, and tutor, Boris Kipnis, for their tremendous support of the piece.

Secondly, a bonus performance!

St Cuthbert's College Concert Band and their wonderful director, Sally Tibbles, gave another performance of my piece, Bubble. I wrote this piece several years ago for the Bay of Plenty Music School and it's had several outings since then. It's a cool little piece and I am SO happy it got a performance by this group.

Thirdly, a gold award!

Let's start at the very beginning.

The Rangitoto College Concert Band is directed by the tremendous Beverley Brockelbank. Unfortunately she was away on tour with another school and was unable to conduct them, so I got the call.

Hold the truck! 'Déjà vu', I hear you say? Yes. Spot on. Earlier this year Bev was unable to take them to Hawaii, so I had that arduous(!) task. Reminisce with me here...

http://www.ryanyouens.com/2017/04/09/hawaii

So anyway, back to KBB. Bev and I worked together with the group in the lead up to the festival and then I took them through festival week.

They performed SO WELL. Like, completely blew my socks off. And they were awarded with a very shiny GOLD award. Hugely proud. Here are some pics:

Next year I may well be back to my committee duties of managing the website, online entries and honours programme, but I'll do my best to make it another extra exciting one.

KBB Music Festival 2013

It was a busy week last week with the KBB Music Festival - the annual school orchestra and band festival. I'm on the committee so it's a busy time of organising, stage managing, watching and listening. On Thursday night it was great to hear the Rangitoto College Concert Band give another performance of my work, "bubble". Nice work guys and thanks for the opportunity to workshop it with you a few weeks earlier.

Here's the inaugural honours orchestra - put together by Peter Thomas, Sally Tibbles and myself - a selection of the finest talent across all participating schools.

Here's the Auckland Town Hall stage setup for last night's gala concerts.

Here's some members of my wonderful chamber orchestra with their bronze award.

I survived 2012. This is how it was!

The New Year means it's time to have a look back over the past year and see, through my blog posts, what has taken shape and what I have to say for myself! January started with a very well deserved "Shout-out to VaultPress" after they marvellously got my website back up and running after a meltdown!

February is the start of the school term and I posted about the preparation work I do for schools.

My typing fingers must have been tired at the end of March - it started with two popular posts, iOS apps for music professionals and Digital music stands vs iPads, following on from, again, two very popular posts I did in 2010.

Following that were four posts on current projects - "Working on workshops" looked at some teaching workshops I was involved with, "An opportunity to make the floor rumble" talked about my upcoming new work for the Auckland Philharmonia and the Auckland Town Hall Organ. I conducted at the Bay Of Plenty Music School once again and my post, "Bay Of Plenty music school hit Rotorua!", pre-empted my visit there, and finally "Opening up an orchestra" reviewed the first two Auckland Philharmonia Open Days were I ran the "meet the composer" area.

In April I reviewed my time at the Bay Of Plenty Music School in "Making music in Rotorua" and posted photos in "Checking out the pipes" after an inspiring tour of the Auckland Town Hall Organ.

May is music month and "A month of New Zealand music" checked out the events me or my music was involved with. It's also 48 Hour Film Festival time and our film this year was "My Confession…".

In June I talked about my involvement with Auckland Symphony's "Night Of The Proms" concerts in "Promenading in the colony" and I posted "Questions for a composer" after answering questions for a student's school assignment.

In July I posted my one word review of each piece from the "Nelson Composers Workshop 2012" where I was very happy to go this year as a mentor.

August is KBB Music Festival time and I also posted on the ongoing saga regarding the future of Sibelius in "What the heck is happening with Sibelius!". My piece, Tiraki, started to take shape after another workshop with the Auckland Philharmonia.

September was rather dormant on the blog front but in October I reviewed “What Lurks Among Saints” after being invited by a student I met earlier in the year.

In November I had the privilege of "Playing my role in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", and I posted about the experience.

December was busy with a number of projects. In "Little pieces of Christmas" I talked about a bunch of Christmas arrangements I did for the Auckland Philharmonia and Auckland Symphony orchestras. I also talked about a film I was involved with, called "Sounds Perfect" and its selection into the Tropfest final in “Sounds Perfect” to be in a final". I then prepared music for some very fine New Zealand singers and talked about it in "Preparing for some legends!".

Finally, no year is complete without a "Merry Christmas" post thanking you for all of your support during the year and the compliments of the season.

Another year ticked off the list, another year doing my absolute dream job - let's get ready for an even better 2013!

KBB Music Festival 2012

My three groups did a great job performing at the KBB Music Festival last week. Well done to all involved, photos below:

2011 through the eyes of a blog

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:

• An exploration “Behind Bars”
• About to bop at the BOP Music School
• Microscore May

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:

• "blimp", for orchestra
• A recipe for Soul Food
• Great company, excellent food … and some music

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":

• May Microscores – a ginormous month of tiny things
• “blimp” lands in Auckland

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:

• KBB Music Festival stretching its legs
• Composition tutorials 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:

• Kicking off the Rugby World Cup 2011
• Music preparation – what and why!

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:

• Christmas carols for violin and viola
• Happy Holidays

Happy New Year everyone, bring on 2012!

KBB Music Festival stretching its legs

This year the KBB Music Festival stretched its legs and was held at the Holy Trinity Cathedral and St Mary's Church in Parnell. It was one again an absolute hit, even considering it had to move for two days due to the state funeral for Sir Paul Reeves! I was on the committee this year, so it was great to spend some more time at the festival and help to organise it beforehand. Being the new venue there were a lot of extra things to think about and teething issues but the many thousands of students who came through during the week had a wonderful time and some outstanding music was made.

Part of my role on the committee was to create and maintain the festival website - of course something I know well and enjoy. Check it out!

I had five groups in the festival this year (sorry, no photos this year!), the Diocesan School Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, the Carmel College Orchestra and Chamber Orchestras and the Kristin School Symphonia. They all did very well and I look forward to another good year at the festival next year.