Chipping in on Out of Silence

On Friday I finished a few weeks of work preparing Victoria Kelly's glorious arrangements for Neil Finn's new album, Out of Silence. Here's one of my favourite tracks, Second Nature:

These are my favourite projects because, aside from working with two totally amazing people, ridiculously good musicians, and in an absolutely gorgeous space... I get to follow through the whole process from receiving arrangement mockups, to transcribing, typesetting and preparing them, to printing and taping them, through to saying "hello!" to the musicians at the session and handing them the music. There is something so completely special about that.

This was one crazy idea. Each Friday in August Neil streamed a live recording session online, so everyone could see the album take shape. Here's the final week where it was a complete run of the album:

This must be about the 5th collaboration between Neil and Victoria that I've had the privilege of working on. Always inspiring. Be sure to check out Victoria's post on the project.

Everyone likes to see beautiful looking music. Right? Here are some pics I took along the way:

Oh, and if I could forget. Unfortunately Victoria fell ill before the final session, and so I stepped in to conduct the final rehearsal. What. Fun. Photos by Adrian Malloch and Steve Dykes:

So, check out the stunning work by these super talented people.

Merry Christmas

And just like that, another year is coming to an end. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported me in some way this year - that may have been with work, with ideas or just with conversation.

It has been an incredible time of music making for me with many wonderful opportunities, inspiring people to work with and some stunning ensembles and musicians to bring the music to life. Some of these include:

Auckland Philharmonia, New Zealand Symphony, Auckland Symphony, Christchurch Symphony, Auckland Youth Orchestra, St Matthew's Chamber Orchestra, Manukau Concert Band, Victoria Kelly, Neil Finn, NZTrio and Horomona Horo, Tecwyn Evans, Michael Norris, Leonie Holmes, John Rowles, Ben Hoadley, Val Landi and Scott Hunt (USA), Bluebird Avenue, Fatcat & Fishface, Alexandros Pappas (Greece), Sideways Productions, Elizabeth Mandeno and David Kelly, the Polkadots, the KBB Music Festival and The Big Sing.

Next year is going to be a big year and absolutely business as usual so get in touch to get me involved with your projects - either as a music preparer, typesetter or editor, or as an arranger and orchestrator.

Over Christmas and New Year I'll be fishing and eating too much near here, chill-axing and probably still eating too much here, and then tramping and working off the Christmas food here. I'll be back working full-time on Monday 6th January, but feel free to get in touch over the break.

To leave you with some music, earlier this year I received the New Zealand Symphony recording of my original work, Rakaia. Auckland Symphony commissioned it in 2007, the NZSO workshopped it in 2008 and then this is their recording from 2010:

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Enjoy, and have an absolutely wonderful Christmas!

Preparing for Neil Finn's live webcast

Last Thursday and Friday I prepared Victoria Kelly's stunning arrangements for Neil Finn's upcoming acoustic tour "Neil Finn: An Intimate Night of Dizzy Heights" with shows in London, New York and LA. I first worked on these in February for his "Dizzy Heights" album are they are now re-written for a live 9-piece string section.

Neil, Victoria and the strings did a live webcast from Roundhead Studios featuring four of the songs as a sneak preview. Here's some of the music ready to go:

If you're interested in checking out the webcast, you can view it here:

Preparing for new Finn album

Over the last few weeks I have been transcribing and typesetting Victoria Kelly's string arrangements for Neil Finn's new solo album. They were being recorded at Roundhead Studios' Studio A and sounded absolutely stunning. There were 106 instrumental parts over 10 arrangements, here are some pics:

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!

Playing my role in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

In what is a massively important and no doubt successful film for New Zealand, I am delighted to have a small part in creating its musical soundtrack. Howard Shore has composed a stunning 105-minute soundtrack for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and there is a New Zealand flavour too with a stunning song by Neil Finn, Plan 9 and David Long, "Song of the Lonely Mountain". Victoria Kelly did the orchestral arrangement and I was very honoured to prepare the music for recording at London's Abbey Road Studios.

In an epic night I received a Logic Pro session and out the other end, via Sibelius, came score and parts transcribed, typeset, edited, proofread and ready to be recorded in London a few hours later by the London Metropolitan Orchestra.

The soundtrack is released on December 11th, visit here to get a sneak peak and a preview of the song. You may have also heard a rendition of it on the red carpet before yesterday's world premiere.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in cinemas on December 3rd, go see it.