Tag: contemporary music

NZSM Orchestra with conductor Hamish McKeich showcases achievements by 2020 award-winning composer and instrumentalist at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
Music by Mica Thompson, Carl Reinecke and Johannes Brahms

THOMPSON  – Song
REINECKE – Flute Concerto In D Major Op.283
BRAHMS – Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op.73

Isabella Gregory (flute)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Saturday, 26th September, 2020

Pandemic restrictions having been relaxed of late (though judiciously more “on hold” than entirely done away with), we were allowed more-or-less regularly-spaced seating at St. Andrew’s to hear the most recent of the NZSM Orchestra’s public concerts, one featuring the recent winner of the School’s Concerto Competition, flutist Isabella Gregory (see the review at https://middle-c.org/2020/07/nzsm-concerto-competition-an-evening-of-elegance-frisson-and-feeling/), playing the Reinecke concerto with which she won the prize, though on this occasion with a full and proper orchestral accompaniment! Flanking her polished, sparkling efforts were two other items, the concert beginning with a work for orchestra  entitled “Song” by Hawkes Bay-born composer Micah Thompson, and concluding with the well-known Second Symphony by Brahms.

Thanks to the aforementioned ravages of Covid-19 upon the present year in respect of public music-making and -presentation, this was, I think, the first 2020 NZSM orchestral concert I’d attended , though I had seen a few of the individual players in other orchestral and chamber presentations at various times. It was certainly one worth the wait for, and promised much beforehand, with the NZSO’s principal Conductor-in-Residence Hamish McKeich due to rehearse and direct the performances. Also, one of the NZSO’s recent Guest Conductors, Miguel Harth-Bedoya apparently worked with the orchestra during this period – though it’s not clear whether the latter had any direct involvement with the orchestra’s preparation for this concert.

The evening began with “thanks and praise” from the director of the School, Prof. Sally Jane Norman, thanks for the efforts of people in staging the concert in the face of near-insuperable difficulties, and praise for the efforts of the musicians and their tutors – mixed in with all of this was warm appreciation for people’s actual attendance at the concert, supporting the school’s activities in fostering the careers of young composers/musicians.

First we heard a work by composer Micah Thompson, called “Song”, and inspired in part by the poetry of British poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998), specifically in this case a 1957 poem “The Hawk in the Rain”. Thompson explained, both in a progamme note and by means of an internet post (https://www.facebook.com/NZSMusic/videos/1186964995018168) how the poet’s interest in the “identity, history and mythologies of particular animals” had informed his own approach to exploring musical instruments’ characteristics and their use – he used Hughes’s “wild, sometimes brutal, but always expressive and melancholic” verses as a kind of counterpoint to his own creative impulses. As the programme printed the text of Hughes’ verses, I couldn’t help comparing his earthier, more confrontational expressiveness to that of an earlier poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins, in the latter’s comparatively rarefied (but just as dramatic and musical) poem from 1877, “The Windhover”, describing the flight of another bird of prey, a falcon.

Thompson’s work also took a number of previously-composed solo pieces, for piano, clarinet and flute, and “collaged” them into what he called “an orchestral space”. This space coalesced into life, the ambient beginnings featuring slivers of percussion, mingled with taonga-puoro-like calls, creating an atmosphere of wildness and vast resonances of possibility – long string lines were punctuated with birdsong and wild gesturings, the sounds suggesting flight both with impulses of wing-beatings and the stillnesses of soaring. Long-held notes for cello, winds, brass and violins accentuated the spaces while various scintillations suggested light-changes, both osmotic and sharp-edged. The celeste brought an almost cow-bell nostalgia into play, contrasting with the increasing combatative-edged intrusions from both clarinet and horn solos, the implicit violence of the poem’s words here suggested abstractedly, one of a number of “perceptions” hinted at by the music. Returning to whisperings, the sounds took on a kind of “mystic” feeling, the flute playing a fanfare-like birdcall, a cadenza-like passage which seemed to awaken the surrounds more markedly, the strings rustling, the percussions tinkling, the basses gently rumbling, the piano chirruping, everything freely modulating before drifting into a silence coloured only by the flute’s gentle call. I like the “assuredness” of it all, its focus supporting tangible imagery and feeling amid all the ambient suggestiveness.

Carl Reinecke’s Flute Concert has long been regarded as the instrument’s principal Romantic flagbearer, given that the composer was of the Romantic persuasion  along the lines of Mendelssohn and Schumann, rather than of Liszt or Wagner – though befriended by Liszt and given introductions by the latter to contacts in Paris, Reinecke remained a firm adherent of the more conservative 19thCentury school. The work’s gentle, Brahmsian opening was essayed beautifully by the players, here, with some lovely horn playing, and beautiful phrasing from the flute at the player’s entrance. The soloist’s “big tune” was answered by the brasses the exchanges taking us into a melancholic, romantic world of feeling, rounded off by a stirring orchestral tutti. I thought Gregory’s playing even more astonishing than when encountering her in the competition’s final, the orchestral accompaniment perhaps giving the soloist more variety to react to and establish a personality very much her own.

The slow movement took on the character of a kind of “Romantic legend”, a gift for a skilled storyteller, dramatic brass and timpani preparing the way for the flute’s narrative, which was here developed with a real sense of occasion and adventure, the ensemble seizing its chances to dramatize the music at every opportunity, an impulse somewhat tamed by the flute’s bringing the ending of the movement into the major key, as an antidote to the relative darkness! Horns and wind threw out a jaunty aspect at the finale’s opening, the flute taking up the polonaise rhythm with gusto, throughout the movement steadfastedly steering the music back to the dance whenever different episodes sought to diversify the expression – a charmingly winsome game of dominance, in which the flute was triumphant, the work’s coda featuring exciting exchanges between Gregory and the musicians, Hamish McKeich keeping the momentums simmering, right to the work’s festive conclusion.

Concluding the programme was a quintessential conservative-Romantic work, the Brahms Second Symphony, one which gave  the composer opportunity for some impish fun in describing the music beforehand to his friends – his tongue-in-cheek characterisations of parts of the work were reproduced in the excellent programme notes, comments such as the words “so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it – I have never written anything so sad, and the score itself will have to come out in mourning”. If at times gruffly expressed, Brahms certainly didn’t lack a sense of humour!

I enjoyed the performance enormously, in the first movement right from the near-perfect horn-playing at the work’s beginning, with its answering winds and floating string responses, through the “lilt” of the playing of the second subject theme by all concerned, and the stirring brass response to the increasing ferment of the development’s exchanges, to the lovely “spent” character of the climbing strings and the glowing wind replies when the opening was recapitulated (I loved the confidently-produced “zinging” quality of the strings’ playing of the dotted-rhythm fanfares shortly afterwards!). And though not absolutely note-perfect, the solo horn’s valedictory passage towards the movement’s end was so beautifully shaped and sounded, the string-playing that followed couldn’t help but sound ravishing (ravished, perhaps?) in reply.

The strings dug into the second movement’s opening as if the players really meant it, the top note of the succeeding upward phrase a bit shaky first time round, but more secure on its repetition – again the horn-playing shone, with the strings, and the winds following, and similarly shining   in succession. As the music floated over graceful pizzzicati both winds and strings sang full-throatedly, confidently leading from this into the music’s darker-browed sequences and holding their ground amid the storms and stresses, the winds eventually coming to the rescue, encouraging the strings to pick their way through the wreckage, putting the crooked straight and making the rough places plain as they went……the return of the opening sequence by strings and winds here made such a heart-warming  impression, even if  the horizons were again darkened and the brasses and timpani held sway for a few anxious moments – amid the uncertainties, winds and strings registered a further brief moment of apprehension with the timpani, before squaring up with a “let’s get on” gesture that brought the sounds to rest.

The third movement, an Allegretto grazioso featured a perky oboe supported by clarinets and followed by flutes  – lovely! The strings delicately danced into the picture, the tempi amazingly swift, the playing precise! – fabulous playing and skilful dovetailing when the oboe rejoined the mix with the opening theme – the lovely “flowering” of the wind textures was then matched  by the strings’ “darkening” of the same, after which the dancing resumed with earnest and energy – and I loved the re-delivery of the opening wind tune by the strings, the downward part of the phrase played with what sounded like a satisfied sigh! – very heartfelt!

The finale was, by contrast, all stealth and mystery at the start, creating great expectation before bursting forth, McKeich and his players creating an invigorating “togetherness” of ensemble, the winds gurgling with excitement when given their turn! The strings gave their all with their “big tune”, the tempo kept steady, the tutti blazing forth with excitement, the syncopations flying past at a tempo, and the sotto voce of the opening’s return maintained. Another excitable tutti was relished, before the triplet-led episode allowed a hint of melancholy to descend upon the textures before the movement’s opening sequence returned with a few ear-catching variants – a bit of scrawny playing here and there simply added to the excitement and abandonment, the brass heaving to with some elephantine comments, and the rest of the orchestra girding its loins for the work’s cataclysmic coda – noisy, but joyful and exuberant! It was a performance which got at the end a well-deserved accolade, doing the composer, as well as the conductor and players, proud!

Voices of Women – A New Zealand sufferage celebration by Janet Jennings

Posted on by Peter Mechen

VOICES OF WOMEN

Music by Janet Jennings
– a celebration of the successful struggle by women to gain the vote

Magnificat (soprano, violin, marimba)
A Daughter of Eve (soprano, piano)
Sit Down With Me Awhile (mezzo-soprano, piano)
Myself When Young (soprano, piano)
Voices of Women (voices, violin, marimba, piano, percussion)

Voices: Jayne Tankersley (soprano) Stephanie Acraman (soprano) Felicity Tompkins (soprano) Cartrin Johnsson (mezzo-soprano) Mere Boynton (voice)
Instrumentalists: Maia-Dean Martin (violin) Yoshiko Tsuruta (marimba) Katherine Austin (piano) Noelle Dannenbring (piano) Rachel Fuller (piano) Maria Mo (piano) Rachel Thomas (percussion)
Conductor (Voices of Women) Rachael Griffiths-Hughes

Produced by Wayne Laird for Atoll Records

ACD201
www.atoll.co.nz

Inspired by the 125th anniversary of the 1893 Electoral Act in New Zealand which gave women the right to vote in New Zealand, the first self-governing country in the world to enact such legislation, this CD collection of works by Janet Jennings was first performed as a single concert in Hamilton, at the Dr. John Gallagher Concert Chamber, University of Waikato, presumably by the same performers.

The opening work, Magnificat, brought to us ethereal visitations of sound from a solo violin, birdsong-like and wreathed in resonances from the marimba, and then joined by the more earthly but still exaltedly beautiful tones of soprano Jayne Tankersley, a human voice addressing heaven, and aspiring to a blessed state with her beautifully-floated omnes generationes. The long-breathed lines became animated at Fecit potentiam in bracio suo (He hath shewed strength with his arm) with voice and violin (the latter played by Maia Dean Martin) flexing their respective energies, after which the singing was increasingly visited with a kind of “possessed” aspect, a heightened presence, the considerations increasingly unworldly and spiritual. Added to this exultation were Yoshiko Tsuruta’s warm and energised marimba colourings at Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, continuing right through  the “charged” radiance of the Amens.

Whether “A Daughter of Eve” was the programme’s or the composer’s name for the group of three Christina Rosetti songs, I’m not certain – but the set began with Rosetti’s heartfelt exploration of feelings associated with motherhood in “Crying, my little One”, the vocal line beautifully and heartfeltedly maintained by Stephanie Acraman, with sterling support from pianist Katherin Austin. The musicians then relished the relatively unbridled energies of the jolly, angular ditty “Winter: my Secret”, a charming series of pacts made by the poet with Nature and its different moods, the mercurial word-patternings setting enigmas against enigmas in an idiosyncratic way. The lamenting, claustrophobically coloured “Daughter of Eve suggested a loss of innocence wrought by circumstance, poor judgement and little care, day giving way to night, summer turning all too soon to winter, singer and pianist expressing the song’s despair with a deft but always sensitive touch.

New Zealand poet Ursula Bethell’s verses from a collection called “From a Garden in the Antipodes” expresed an intensely personal pride in creating something beautiful, a garden in which the poet “laboured hour on hour”. In a group called “Sit Down With Me Awhile” mezzo Catrin Johnsson and pianist Rachel Fuller delineated both anecdote and detail with a good deal of personality and character. The eponymous opening song outlined the hard work of creation and celebrated the ensuing rewards.  The process was continued with Warfare, a part war-chant and part dance, making a gardener’s peace with adversarial pests, while Ado railed against nature for outstripping the gardener’s best attentions with what the poet called “orgies”! I loved “Easter Bells”, the ambience generously resounding with vocal and instrumental ambiences – Jennings’ writing evoked a powerful sense of ritual and heartfelt faith in the process of change and renewal.

The title of the next group “Myself When Young” was not, in this case, anything to do with Edward Fitzgerald’s “Omar Khayyam” verses – but were settings of poems by Jean Alison Bartlett (1912-2006), written when the poet was 18 years old – soprano Felicity Tompkins’s brighter, more youthful, if less detailed tones energetically conveying the excitement of the poet’s work being published in “My poem was printed”, and with pianist Maria Mo’s evocative, flexible phrasings, savouring the sensuousness of a poem’s words in “Stop, Look, Listen” – beautiful evocations from singer and pianist, here – a pity the on-line text of this song “broke off” mid-way through, denying us the full impact of the words’ meanings……

Finally, there was “Voices of Women”, an extended “sprechgesang” kind of setting which articulated speeches and writings by various women from different parts of the world. Conductor Rachael Griffiths-Hughes powerfully launched the music’s Shostakovich-like opening, the ensemble’s playing (joined to splendid effect by pianist Noelle Dannenbring and percussionist Rachel Thomas) giving the scenario all the tension and “edge” needed throughout the lead-up to the anguished, repeated cries of “Is it right!”, powerfully underlining the spoken words of the first of these women, Kate Sheppard. Unfortunately, the production didn’t signify more clearly which performer was singing and speaking at any one time during the work – but after the speaker’s eloquently-delivered Kate Sheppard quote came a stirring setting of a poem by American Charlotte Perkins Gilman, from 1911 (predating American women suffrage by nine years!), the unnamed singer brilliantly and sonorously articulating the text, particularly telling at the words “That not a woman’s child – nor her own body – is her own”.

The opening music returned to herald Kate Sheppard’s announcement (a different singer) of the passing of the suffrage legislation – I thought the newsreel-like progressions of comments and events had a direct sweep and energy which made for effectively powerful and theatrical listening, the instrumental-only sequence driving the times forward to the present day and the voice of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, “speaking from Parliament” – spoken at first, rather than sung, paying homage to Kate Shepherd and Margaret Sievwright, and containing the telling words “we stand on the shoulders of giants, and they stood on the shoulders of mothers…” Fittingly, the work ended with a fully throated paean of exultant praise and celebration from the ensembled voices, and suitably sonorous underpinning by the instrumental forces – a splendidly-voiced triumph of reason and justice. Janet Jennings’ powerful work has here given ample tongue to the fruition, then and now, of that resounding triumph.

 

Ghost Trio haunts sensibilities long after final notes in concert sounded

Posted on by Peter Mechen

A remarkable lunchtime concert by the Ghost Trio at the Adam Concert Room….

Ghost Trio – Monique Lapins (violin), Ken Ichinose (‘cello), Gabriela Glapska (piano)

BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio In C Minor Op. 1 No.3
MARTIN LODGE – Summer Music (2001)
SHOSTAKOVICH – Piano Trio in C Minor No.1  Op.8

Adam Concert Room, Te Kōkī NZ School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington

Friday, 17th July 2020

I had heard the Ghost Trio perform the same Beethoven work more than a fortnight previously (a concert reviewed below by my colleague, Steven Sedley), though this time round it was coupled to a different programme. Instead of the remarkable Piano Trio Op.1 by Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik (which I would have liked to hear again), the musicians chose to branch out in a different direction,  with each of the accompanying works expressing what I thought was a certain affinity with Beethoven’s music. We heard Kiwi composer Martin Lodge’s engaging “Summer Music”, whose effect was a kind of miniature out-of-doors, “Pastoral Symphony-like” sound-adventure, interlacing both natural and human noises. This was followed with a Piano Trio written by the then sixteen year-old Dmitri Shostakovich, a work whose Beethovenian “charge” of emotion alarmed the young composer’s professors at the Petrograd Conservatory as profoundly as was Josef Haydn disturbed by the boldness of his most famous pupil’s Op.1 C Minor Piano Trio.

As with the St.Andrew’s performance, the players drew their listeners into the composer’s world of dark and serious purpose from the very opening phrases, the sequences generating a disturbing quality throughout the instrumental interactions which never relinquished its grip. Sitting closer to the players in the Adam Concert Room this time round I felt involved all the more in the constant flow and ebb of  intensities, the explosive nature of the music’s dramatic contrasts, and the disconcerting upward\downward semitone shifts of the opening theme in places. Though the gloom was occasionally leavened by a contrasting, if briefly-wrought lyrical theme, any sunnier prospect was quickly clouded over again in no uncertain terms, the first-movement repeat emphasising the thrall in which we were held – and the development was similarly charged with tensions, light and darkness unceasingly pushing and shoving one another to one side – it was quite a ride!

The theme-and variations second movement promised some relief from Beethovenian brow-beating, and the players responded at the opening with some nobly-wrought sounds – perhaps it was partly due to the music’s playfulness but I found myself listening as much to the playing’s solo lines as to the concerted effect of the music-making throughout, the dialogues and “trialogues” as involving as the ensembled sounds – I relished the playful pizzicati of the third variation, the soulful cello solo of the fourth, and the sparkling chromatic keyboard runs of the fifth (all beautifully executed and characterfully dovetailed), to mention but a few ear-catching features.

As much scherzo as minuet, the third movement fused a certain wistful quality with playfulness, the piano’s frequent decorative figurations making a marked contrast with the occasional emphasised accent – again, the musicians gave the music’s angularities full scope to proclaim the work’s character, while allowing a fantastic element (those strangely-echoed resonances which suggested in places hidden voices directing the ebb and flow of things) some treasurable moments of sleight-of-hand, even magic.  As for the prestissimo finale, the players found more character than mere “virtuoso roar” with which to give voice to the music’s agitations, their nimble articulations (the pianist especially fleet-fingered!) creating wonderment and delicious anticipation as well as excitement, with the composer reserving the biggest surprise for the hushed, somewhat “spooked” coda, the musicians voicing the mystery and unease of it all to perfection at the end.

I hadn’t heard Martin Lodge’s “Summer Music” for some time but thought its appeal as instantly-involving as ever, with “hit the ground running” energies at the outset leading the listener into a world of vividly-wrought happenings. Both music and performance came across as remarkably organic, with swirling piano figurations and swinging thematic lines eventually giving way to sequences of stillness, the world stopping to listen to itself and inviting us to eavesdrop. Out of these breath-catching pointillistic etchings returned those same songs, a yearning for the natural world amid “humanity’s mad inhuman noise”, perhaps? – all very “Scene by the Brook”-like in its rediscovered innocence –  and leading into and through various undercurrents of pulse  to a beautiful and wistful blending of action, nature and memory at the end. The performance here caught me up in its vivid response to the music’s “story” and its accompanying array of alternating bustle and beauty.

So to the Shostakovich Trio, an equally remarkable evocation of the sixteen year-old composer’s thrall to a young woman, Tatyana Glivenko, whom he had met on holiday in 1923 in the Crimea (he was actually convalescing from tuberculosis at the time) – the music grew partly out of material he’d written for other works he had since abandoned, a Piano Sonata and a Quintet. Though nothing serious developed from the encounter with Tatyana, Shostakovich kept in touch with her by correspondence for many years. Two years after completing the Trio, the youthful composer performed the work as part of his application to continue his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory, and was actually accepted, though his continuing ill health in the end forced him to remain at the Conservatory in Petrograd.

This single-movement work owed much of its bold, almost cinematic character to the composer’s part-time job as a cinema pianist playing the accompaniment for silent films. Shostakovich’s sister Zoya remembered that her brother and two of his friends actually used the cinema accompaniment as a rehearsal for the Piano Trio on one occasion, remarking that “the people whistled and booed!” But Shostakovich’s music from an early age seemed to revel in these characteristics, a family friend, the novelist Konstantin Fedin recalling hearing the boy playing his own compositions to guests at the family home – “….unexpected works which forced one to listen as if one were in the theatre, where everything is so clear that one must either laugh or weep.” Despite, or perhaps because of this ready accessibility, the Trio wasn’t published during Shostakovich’s lifetime, and had to be reconstructed from various sources, the missing last twenty or so bars of the piano part in fact “recomposed” by his pupil Boris Tishchenko.

Again, this was a remarkably involving performance, the players at full stretch in the more virtuoso, densely-woven ensemble passages, but “owning” their full-blooded expressionist character as great-heartedly as they did the more lyrical and unashamedly romantic passages, the whole almost Mahlerian in its all-embracing fervour. To comment on this or that individually-wrought passage seems of less importance than marvelling at the concerted “sweep’ of the music’s realisation by the ensemble – long may the Ghost Trio’s efforts continue to thrillingly haunt their audience’s sensibilities thus!

The composer of Kopernikus, Claude Vivier: interview with conductor Vladimir Jurowski

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Why Quebec composer Claude Vivier was ahead of his time

In the absence of real concerts that Middle C can review, why not publish things of musical interest that might in small part make up for the deprivations we all suffer at present? 

Here is an article that appeared in 2018 in the Montreal Globe and Mail that might interest those who saw Claude Vivier’s opera, Kopernikus, at the recent festival in Wellington. I came across a reference to Vivier in the French magazine, Opéra Magazine: a concert performance of Vivier’s Hiérophanie, scheduled for performance at the Paris Philharmonie (the city’s brilliant new concert hall) in September last.

See Middle C review at https://middle-c.org/2020/03/festival-stages-remarkable-eccentric-opera-by-canadian-claude-vivier/)

In seeking information about Hiérophanie, I found this interview/article. 

Article by Catherine Kustanczy

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published April 13, 2018

This article was published more than 1 year ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.

Many things can be said about the music of Claude Vivier, but one thing is certain: No one who hears it is quite the same afterward. Vivier, who would have turned 70 on April 14th, is a unique figure in music. Orphaned as a baby, he attended Catholic boarding school and later the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, before studying composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne. A boisterous figure known for his distinct laugh and an omnipresent sheepskin coat, Vivier’s works, largely biographical, were, as British musicologist Bob Gilmore has written, a way of “confronting loneliness, darkness, terror; of negotiating a relationship with God; of voicing an insatiable longing for acceptance and for love.”

His music combines voice, rhythm and instrumental textures, in French, German, and even imaginary languages. Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Do you believe in the immortality of the soul), his final, unfinished work, concerns a narrator (named Claude) meeting a young man and being fatally stabbed; Vivier would perish in this exact way on March 8, 1983.

An interview with conductor Vladimir Jurowski: his views about Vivier

There have been numerous tributes to Vivier over the past year, with Canadian outlets Soundstreams, Against the Grain Theatre and Esprit Orchestra (the latter being long-time supporters) presenting work. But if the old Canadian trope holds true about foreign recognition being a litmus test for success, then Vivier passes, with flying colors.

One notable tribute unfolded in Berlin in late February. Presented by contemporary classical group ensemble unitedberlin (who have previously explored Vivier’s work), the concert saw Russian conductor and artistic adviser Vladimir Jurowski exercising his music talents and theatrical instincts with equal zeal, particularly during Hiérophanie (1970-71), in which he played a stern priest/judge, directing members of the ensemble through shouts, shuffles and prostrations, in a performance faithful to Vivier’s animated instructions.

Days later, Jurowski led the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester (Radio Symphony Orchestra) Berlin, where he is chief conductor and artistic director, in a harrowing performance of works by Berg, Shostakovich and contemporary Australian composer Brett Dean, whose operatic adaptation of Hamlet was given its world premiere at the Glyndebourne opera festival last summer, with Jurowski on the podium.

As well as being principal conductor of the London Philharmonic, he holds a directorship in Moscow and keeps a busy schedule of dates across Europe. Building creative programs, especially ones featuring 20th-century work, is his specialty, and in the case of Vivier, he notes that “the further away we’re getting from him physically, the more important he becomes spiritually and artistically.”

In 2021, Jurowski begins duties as general music director of the Bavarian State Opera and has indicated that Munich audiences can anticipate lesser-known works alongside opera hits. Will that include Vivier’s 1980 opera Kopernikus? Only Jurowski knows for sure.

Why Vivier in 2018?

He was, in many ways, ahead of his time, and he was beyond time and space. Some people who were very much in their time, like [Karlheinz] Stockhausen or [Pierre] Boulez, made their time, made it an epoch – an era – and in some of their aspects, remain timeless, but in other aspects sound extremely dated. For instance, Stockhausen, who Vivier studied with, a lot of his work sounds incredibly dated today. Vivier, because he was creating his style from scratch, precreated something which came into full effect only after he departed. So now, of course, we can only imagine what he could have developed had he lived any longer.

When did you first hear the work of Vivier?

My personal route was via [French composer] Gérard Grisey . I discovered his last piece, which he also tragically left unfinished, because he died – Four Songs for Crossing the Threshold – and that piece was, in its initial stages, connected to Vivier’s death. So Grisey was trying to pay tribute to his friend, and they were near-contemporaries. I somehow instinctively felt that in the case of Vivier, we have one of those rare, highly romantic cases where the life of a composer and the work of a composer become one thing. In my head, Vivier is sitting up there with people like Gustav Mahler and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Franz Schubert, those people for whom an artistic expression became an existentialist act which could be life-changing, life-saving or life-annihilating. So without having any facts at hand to prove the case, I am convinced, more than I am convinced about anything else, that Vivier had initiated and planned and nearly, could say, staged, his departure.

You think so?

I’m convinced. Having composed this imaginary death, he felt he had to oblige his own artistic imagination, and go. It’s like one of the traditional Japanese beliefs, that if you cannot change the world and strongly dislike it, you’re supposed to leave the world to its karma and leave. For someone like Vivier, who’d been strongly connected to all sorts of Oriental spiritual beliefs and practices, that was the most natural thing to do. The unnatural aspect of course is the form of death.

So his passing was his final artistic act?

That’s exactly what I feel about it.

What’s it been like to be so involved with a work that demands more as a conductor?

I think that’s to do with me generally being some kind of, I call it bat syndrome, a bat in the sense of it being an animal which has left the world of mammals but hasn’t quite reached the world of birds. I am flying between the worlds.

So you don’t want to be a traditional conductor?

No, it’s boring. There’s a whole new generation, people like Teodor Currentzis – he also goes over borders stylistically – we are very different, but still I think it’s a genuine interest for not just one direction in the music. For me, the predominant points of my artistic being are symphonic music, early music, contemporary music and music theatre. And sometimes I’m even allowed to combine all of them in one.

 

NZ Opera’s “Eight Songs for a Mad King” a brilliant, Janus-faced experience

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NZ Opera presents
EIGHT SONGS FOR A MAD KING

Music by Peter Maxwell Davies
Texts by Randolph Stow and George III

The King: Robert Tucker

The Musicians: Stroma New Music Ensemble
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
Rachel Fuller (keyboard/s)
Luca Manghi (flute)
Mark Cookson/Patrick Barry (clarinets)
Yuka Eguchi (violin)
Heather Lewis/Robert Ibell (‘cellos)
Jeremy Fitzsimons (percussion)

Director – Thomas de Mallet Burgess
Production Designer – Robin Rawstorne
Assistant Conductor – Timothy Carpenter
Repetiteur – Rachel Fuller

RNZB Dance Centre, Wellington

Monday 2nd March 2020

Firstly, some background for the curious – the “King” of this concert’s title is King George III of England, who suffered from mental illness throughout his adult life, eventually being removed from his throne and kept under lock and key in Windsor Castle. Over his final decade he lost his eyesight and hearing, and fell prey to frequent manic episodes, by all accounts babbling endlessly as he slid into dementia, and eventually dying in 1820 at the age of eighty-one. The King owned a number of caged bullfinches, and during his confinement became obsessed with teaching his birds how to sing tunes played by a mechanical organ or music-box. This instrument, along with a note identifying its provenance as owned and used by the unfortunate Monarch, came to the notice, almost two hundred years afterwards, of Australian author and poet Randolph Stow, who was inspired to create a series of poems, parts of which were drawn from recollections of witnesses to the King’s outpourings, and directly illustrated his pitiable condition. British avant-garde composer Peter Maxwell Davies set these poems to music, writing with the vocal talents of one Roy Hart in mind, a virtuoso South African singer who had become interested in exploring the range and limits of the human voice.

At the time of the work’s premiere, in April 1969, Davies fully expected “Eight Songs” to remain a “one-off” for Hart, never imagining anybody else being able or even wanting to perform the piece. He was therefore surprised and delighted at how the work soon took on a life of its own, becoming a classic example of a new “music-theatre” genre, which redeployed (and often subverted) existing performance conventions. Davies himself recorded the work with his own virtuoso avant-garde music-group, “The Fires of London”, though sadly for posterity, not with Roy Hart, the creator of the  role – fortunately the soloist on the 1971 Unicorn recording, Julius Eastman, was a worthy successor.

In his notes accompanying the recording, the composer stated that his intention was “to leave open the question – is the persecuted protagonist “Mad George III” or someone who thinks he is George?”. Naturally the work will forever be associated with the monarch in question, given that the song texts contain numerous actual quotations of the King’s words – the novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney was Queen Charlotte’s lady-in-waiting for five years, and during that time she recorded both events and utterances in which the King was central (as an example, the whole of the text of the sixth song, “The Counterfeit” is transcribed by Randolph Stow from Burney’s diary). But the suggestion that the character of the King might also represent any such deluded individual straightaway lifts the work out of its singular and historical confines and into the realm of general human experience, of which mental illness seems in our time to be an increasingly common affliction. Davies reminded us in his notes that until relatively recent times, “madness” was something to ridicule, and in more severe cases isolate, often in the most inhumane and nightmarish conditions; and while treatments and care-environments are nowadays less primitive, the stresses and inbalances that, if ignored, can lead to mental illness are still very much with us.

New Zealand Opera’s innovative production of the work gives audiences not one but two separate and different views of the terrain in all senses of the word – the mindscape of an extremely disturbed individual, firstly (as happened in my particular case) from the “outside” 0f the performance space, visible from the outside through windows, and audible by means of headsets for each audience member. So, first time round, we were seated in the open air, cannily underneath a tarpaulin in a space next to the building in which the opera was being performed – and through the windows we could glimpse the singer performing his on-stage peregrinations, and via the excellent headphones we clearly heard his cocktail mix of song, sprechgesang and random, wide-ranging vocalisings, along with the constant instrumental collaborations from the ensemble – the whole thing was an “outsider’s view”, a process that was observed, but without direct involvement, something that one could easily distance oneself from at a moment’s notice if one felt so inclined.

What a difference after one was ushered inside for the second performance (each took about thirty minutes), to sit right next to the stage (which was a kind of “catwalk” extending the whole width of the audience-space, and with seating on both sides)! Here, we straightaway felt “drawn in” by the immediacies, the sometimes startling proximities , and the “sharing-the-space” phenomenon that can make great theatre (and music-making, of course!). Singer Robert Tucker, looking none the worse for wear after having already given one performance of the piece appeared in close-up somewhat disconcertingly (a) youthful, and (b) dapper, not quite in accordance with my preconceived “image” of a deranged George III, but nevertheless exuding a kind of “authority” from the outset, entering quietly but portentously, and sitting at one end of the catwalk activating a “Newton’s Cradle”, waiting for the first of the instrumental explosions whose force and violence punctuate the music-drama.

In some performances the instrumentalists are positioned in separate giant birdcages, each player representing one of the King’s bullfinches he attempted to teach to sing – here the players weren’t thus confined, but sat as an ensemble at one end of the platform, the singer alternating his attentions between them, his audience(s) and wherever his mind’s fancy took him. And the “double audience” added a dimension to the singer’s confusions, his awareness of interiors and exteriors pathetically expressed amidst his tirades by glances through the windows at an “outside world”. Despite the close physical proximities, the venue’s largely empty spaces behind where we sat and its ample acoustic seemed to me to underline the essential solitude of the King’s existence. His interactions with his musicians and the audience, despite their sometimes startlingly visceral nature seemed all fantasy. “I am weary of this fate – I am alone” sang the character at the conclusion of one of the songs.

The performance in every way was astonishing – Robert Tucker as the King “owned” his character in a way that explored a gamut of human emotion, engaging our sympathies at his “plight” as readily as activating our discomfiture with his volatility. The demands of the role pushed the concept of “singing” into realms of expression which transcended the idea of the voice as a musical instrument as we might generally accept it through what the composer aptly termed “terrifying virtuosity”. But in appearing not as any kind of caricatured asylum-bound lunatic, whose tirades were neither extreme, nor “onslaught-like” as were some of the performers in the role I’ve witnessed on film, Tucker’s delineation of the character always seemed intensely human, in places touchingly bringing out the tendernesses of some of his utterances (as observed by Fanny Burney in her diary), if at times squeamish-inducing (as throughout his “close-up-and-personal” interactions with a hapless flutist, during “The Lady-in-Waiting”, brilliantly carried off by both singer and player). His anger, too, spectacularly vented at one infamous moment in the piece, mirrored a kind of reality of frustration, an impulse in tragic accord with human behaviour gone awry. This “one-of-us” aspect suggested  by the production brought home , to my mind, the “for whom the bell tolls” aspect of our human existence, so that our “relief” at the King’s eventual departure was singed with spots of pity and sorrow and even horror at the finality of the concluding percussive juggernaut, which consigned his heart-rending cries to oblivion.

Conductor Hamish McKeich led the Stroma Ensemble unerringly through a veritable thicket of coruscations, appearing to never miss a beat, shirk an uproar, or delineate a disorder! – and in parallel to these subversions the players sounded the lyrical moments, the dance-tunes and the whimsical parodies (a gorgeous two-step take-off of Handel’s music at one point) with delicious elan, as well as bringing to bear their array of bird-song devices in a veritable “chaos of delight” (alas, Charles Darwin’s words, not mine!). The accordance of theatrical movement with the music was exemplary throughout, the jaunty introduction to “To be sung on the Water” followed by beautiful ‘cello solos evoking a boat-ride down the river, one of a number of enduring memories of the performance.

Director Thomas de Mallet Burgess would have been well-pleased with both the powerful overall impact and the finely-crafted detailed focus his musicians brought to this production. Its dual-performance aspect gives it a singular kind of appeal, no matter in what order one experiences the “outside/inside” presentation, be it a savouring of expectation beforehand, or food for thought afterwards! – It plays again tonight (Wednesday 4th March) at 8:30pm, and then at the same time on both the 5th and 7th later this week at the RNZB Dance Centre next to the MFC in Wakefield St., Wellington.

 

 

 

 

Festival stages remarkable, eccentric opera by Canadian, Claude Vivier

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Festival of the Arts
Kopernikus: Opéra – rituel de mort by Claude Vivier

Directed by Peter Sellars and curated by Lemi Ponifasio
Singers: Roomful of Teeth
Instrumentalists: Ensemble l’instant donné

Opera House, Wellington

Sunday 1 March, 7 pm

It hasn’t been hard to have missed references in the international musical press to a very unusual opera by an unorthodox, fairly obscure composer.

Think again if you imagined you would be presented with a kind of operatic biography of the great astronomer, for he is merely one of a number of disparate historical and fictional figures that feature in Canadian composer Claude Vivier’s work. A work that that is dominated by the contemplation of death, subtitled: the Ritual of Death.

It was composed in 1978/79 and premiered on 9 May 1980 at the University of Montreal where it has had several subsequent productions. Vivier was killed, apparently in a homosexual encounter in Paris in 1983.

Peter Sellars directed its first United States production in 2016 at the Ojay Music Festival in California, in the production that has since been seen in various places including Bilbao, New York, Paris … and finally in Wellington. The work seems not to have been much revived, if at all, through the 1990s apart from in Canada, but has more recently seen several productions, which I enlarge on in an Appendix. One of the co-production names, apart from the Paris Autumn Festival at the Théâtre de la ville, is the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, in Hanover.

The richest variety of reactions have emerged from critics and the general audience, about Kopernikus. It’s been described as a transition from life to death, transcendental, mystical, disorientating, atmospheric, ethereally beautiful, immersive, stirring, mesmerizing, evocative.

Were he alive, Vivier would claim that complaints about the obscurity and the disorientating impact of the work miss the point. It is not perhaps incoherent; but to take a sympathetic view of it, very unusual in its context, its style and language. Its subject matter which can be felt as philosophically and intellectually pretentious, suggest the sort of creation that a gifted undergraduate might produce to show a wide-ranging though recent familiarity with disparate eras and aspects of philosophical, religious notions; a juxtaposition of science, orthodox philosophical ideas laced with varieties of mysticism such as in the role of Agni, the Vedic god of fire.

The words and the music 
One unusual, though plain element arises with Copernicus whose then-revolutionary findings about the movement of the planets and the sun is delivered in normal speech. Vivier suggests that “as he transformed understanding of the universe, death changes our understanding of our lives”.

Similarly pertinent, are later brief references to major philosophers, from Thales and Plato, through Averroes in the 12th century, to Copernicus himself.

We are not confronted however, by music that is problematic. There is nothing wildly dissonant and incoherent such as was favoured by the avant-garde through the latter years of the century. The character of the vocal and instrumental music is unusual, original, even bizarre, yet it has an emotional impact that marks it as genuinely imaginative. It arouses curiosity and much of it can be listened to with simple pleasure. Harmonies are usually conventional though employed in strange ways.

One review from Canada described it as ‘…a surreal experience for the audience’. And continued: ‘The work’s intimate power, manifest weirdness, sublimely sonic harmonies, meditative incandescence and above all, ritualistic remembrance of all universes past and future’.
Yes.

The ‘staging’ was a curious matter; need it really have been in an opera house? For it didn’t use the pit, and the disposition of players and singers was simply functional, influenced by whoever was performing from time to time. Players mingled with singers, and they all moved about, not in a way that suggested a plot or actual events, but simply to position themselves for their next individual offering. That casualness contributed to the agreeable impression that the entire performance generated.

And there’s a dead man lying on a slab in the centre of the stage; at one point he is spoken to directly, “Eternity comes to speak to us and we must listen; sublime revelation is the voice of time…”    He rises miraculously at the beginning of the second part. It wasn’t clear to me whether he then took a particular part or even spoke or sang at all.

Singers and instrumentalists
Both singers and instrumentalists have worked with Sellars elsewhere. All are dressed in white and are together on a partially raised stage with no sets other than chairs and a bed on which a dead man lies.

The seven singers, Roomful of Teeth, cover the full range from coloratura soprano to bass; they each have conspicuous roles and displayed remarkable sympathy with the music, both its coherence and its incoherence. For the most part they sing individually, but there are occasional ensembles that reveal interesting, engaging harmonies, which might technically be dissonances, but they are so beautifully used that they are heard as good examples of intelligent dissonance with genuine artistic purpose. The singers take roles: Copernicus himself and his mother, Lewis Carroll, Merlin, a witch, Mozart and the Queen of the Night, Tristan and Isolde, and a central character: Agni. But the programme notes spell out a great number of subsidiary roles taken by each singer, drawn from Vivier.

Much of the singing is in Vivier’s made-up language and most of the rest is in French and surtitles covered the latter. But it was rarely possible in a single hearing, to identify singers of individual roles, nor is there a story line to create any semblance of a normal opera.

The seven orchestral players the Ensemble l’instant donné comprise a violin, 3 clarinets – – one doubled on a bass clarinet, an oboe, trumpet – not usually visible, and trombone, and there’s a collection of percussion. It was a lively, always energising performance by these seven musicians, conspiring brilliantly with the singers throughout.

Also included in a well balanced programme book, is an excellent, short essay by Clarissa Dunn (of ‘Concert FM’, at least for the moment).

A New York Times review commented: “The best Vivier performances capture his delirious, jewelled grandeur but also his modesty — the earnest intensity of his desire to communicate, even through nonsense syllables.”

 

Appendix
Earlier productions
After its initial performances in Montreal it has been revived there in 1985, 1986, 1988 and 1989; in London in 1985 at the Almeida Festival, in Paris in 1989, and in Vancouver in 1990.

It’s remarkable that it had taken 41 years for it to be heard in New York, and 38 years for the United States generally (at the Ojai Music Festival in California in 2016); but does that say something about relations between the US and Canada, and even more with Quebec: not least about the cultural condition of a country where opera, and classical music generally, are in the hands of the private sector rather than of enlightened state institutions.

It’s fared better in Europe. In Amsterdam in 2014; in 2018 it was performed in the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse; at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, in January 2019. And as remarked above, this production was shared with KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, in Hanover. While it’s now, perhaps as a result of its espousal by a director as famous as Sellars, being seen more widely, it has clearly not been eagerly taken up by any of the major opera houses. Its first appearance in New York, last year, was at a minor Brooklyn theatre, the production have been premiered in a planetarium in Buenos Aires; in Paris it was at the normally non-music Théâtre de la ville, which is opposite the major operatic, Châtelet theatre.

A review of a 2001 performance in Montreal in London’s Opera magazine commented that Kopernikus had become Canada’s most frequently performed opera. And it remarked that the performance seen in Montreal came at the end of a cross-country run of performances by Toronto’s Autumn Leaf Productions.

It was that production that ran in Huddersfield in 2000, and was reviewed by Opera magazine’s editor John Allison in February 2001. His very measured review included this observation: “It could easily irritate even the mildest of sceptics, and the compelling grip of this performance was thanks in part to the simple and poetic staging by the Toronto-based Autumn Leaf Performance company”.

It was the simplicity and unpretentiousness of the Sellars’ production in Wellington that moderated the degree of scepticism that I too felt about the ‘story’ aspect of the work.

And I found myself somewhat, by no means entirely, in sympathy with critic Robert Markow’s remark in Opera magazine about the Toronto performance:
“Kopernikus is rich in potential, yet the opera is maddeningly unfulfilling. Beyond the score’s obviously imaginative and original instrumental sound-world, a giant leap of faith is required to connect with Vivier’s autobiographical display of self-indulgence masquerading as a universal initiation myth.”

And I do not share a peremptory dismissal such as this: “Yet within three minutes of the 70-minute ‘opera-ritual of death’, it was evident that Mr. Vivier’s inspiration came from a senseless jumble of eclectic paraphernalia.”

By the way, the name has become an EU issue. There has been a move to change the spelling of the name to the German version, which is as spelt in Vivier’s opera (though in French it’s Copernic). Poland has protested; it is Kopernik in Polish. Copernicus was born Torun which is now in Poland but which over the centuries has been in either Poland or Prussia. One Polish authority has recommended a compromise using the Latin spelling which is Copernicus, which if course has long been the international name.

 

Jonathan Lemalu and Virtuoso Strings blaze forth in Porirua’s Te Ata Festival

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Virtuoso Strings  – O Matou Malaga (Our Voyage), with Jonathan Lemalu

Jonathan Lemalu (bass)
Nina Noble (trumpet) / Elijah Futi (piano) / Martin Riseley (violin)
Kitty Sneyd-Utting/Jillian Tupuse (violin, vocals) /Toloa Faraimo (concertmaster)
Rochelle Pese Akerise (violin) Benjamin Sneyd-Utting (‘cello)
Glenview School Choir and friends
Virtuoso Strings, Sinfonia for Hope
Andrew Atkins (conductor)

Te Rauparaha Arena, Porirua

Saturday, 22nd February 2020

Though the two events weren’t directly related, this heart-warming, youth-driven classical music event in Porirua involving Jonathan Lemalu and the Virtuoso Strings flew in the most appropriate and timely way right in the face of attitudes and rationales voiced by certain forces who had recently proposed the closure of RNZ Concert, the public network’s classical music station. Though on the face of things driven by demographic concerns (RNZ Concert’s replacement station, we were told, represented “a new music “brand” to reach a wider, younger audience”) the proposed change sadly reflects a world-wide trend involving governments in the process of defunding these “creative” activities regarded by official bean-counters as “non-profitable”, with art- music everywhere having to fight to justify its existence. Because a lot of people these days simply aren’t exposed to any classical music the latter is regarded as elitist and the preserve of “old white people”, although the “cheap-shot” by a certain commentator characterising RNZ Concert-listeners as “privileged cardigan-wearers” does seem to have backfired of late! A spirited demonstration in the grounds of Parliament on Monday 24thmade the reactions of the classical station’s loyal listeners to the proposals absolutely clear to the Government  – “Set up your new “Youth Station” by all means, but don’t cannibalise our RNZ Concert in the process!”

The perfect answer to the spurious claim of lack of significant youth involvement in classical music was provided by both performers and their audience at the Te Rauparaha Arena, Porirua’s “O Matou Malaga – Our Voyage” event, a concert featuring the artists listed above in the opening presentation of Te Ata, an “interactive cultural festival for young people in Porirua”, one sponsored by the 2020 New Zealand Festival of the Arts. Virtuoso Strings, based in Cannons Creek, Porirua, is a charitable trust which provides free music tuition and instruments to students at low decile schools in Porirua East, involving over 300 Porirua East students over the past year alone, and establishing a youth and community orchestra which has performed in many community events. Last year the orchestra toured Northland giving concerts in various centres; and a String Octet from the group  performed in Auckland during August at the National Chamber Music finals in the Town Hall, capturing the People’s Cholce Award in doing so (playing the “Goodnight Kiwi” piece by composer Craig Utting referred to below).

Grammy Award-winning bass Jonathan Lemalu is the Patron of the Virtuoso Strings Orchestra, intent on fostering the talents of the young performers, and helping individuals learn from the skills of making music, and in doing so, enrich their own lives and that of their families and community. The orchestra’s founders, Elizabeth Sneyd and Craig Utting, began the group in 2013, and have, with the help of the Virtuoso Strings Charitable Trust, former Board member Siang Lim and current members James Faraimo, Paul Setefano and Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban built a successful and flourishing music scheme which today is an integral part of the Porirua Community. The centrepiece of the concert’s first half on this occasion was in fact a work originally written (and arranged especially for this ensemble) by Craig Utting, a beautiful piece called “Goodnight Kiwi”, which I’d heard performed before, and here was presented as an orchestral work, with the original Octet “wrapped” in extra orchestral ambience, an attractive and atmospheric “variant” on what I’d encountered and enjoyed so much last year.

Before the concert Sir Roderick Deane welcomed us and introduced the performers, after which Jonathan Lemalu took the stage, announcing, after a few introductory remarks, that “In the beginning there was just one piano” – which was the signal for the pianist Elijah Futi to hurl forth, firstly, a keyboard version of the well-known 20thCentury-Fox signature-tune, and then gradually morph through some Gershwin-type rhythm-‘n-blues impulses (apparently excerpts from the theme music to the TV show “The Simpsons”!) and into the Grieg Piano Concerto’s first movement, accompanied gorgeously by the strings! From this grew a sequence devised and composed by Craig Utting, running the entire length of the concert’s first half, and whose sounds were accompanied by images assembled and presented by Moses Viliamu and Kitty Sneyd-Utting.  Jonathan Lemalu’s commentary  words stressing “solace” and “companionship” accompanied some Vaughan Williams-like “Greensleeves” fragments, the poignantly-phrased solo cello (Benjamin Sneyd-Utting) joined by violins sweetly descanting a counterpoint.

Then, at the announcement “Virtuoso Strings was born”, it seemed almost as if Shostakovich had come amongst the tumult, and gone “pasifika”,  with drums excitedly roaring forth as first, but the strings then underpinned the rhythm with swaying single notes, and calmed the excitement, allowing an ethereal atmosphere to settle over the ambience, with Kitty Sneyd-Utting’s wordless voice a stratospheric strand in the mix. It led seamlessly to an invocation of “Travelling” together and on individual journeys, characterising the players’ both touring with the orchestra and developing their individual skills, Lemalu singing a text written by Adrienne Jansen, asking the question “What shall I give you to take on this journey?”

Te Rangirua o Toiri was a forceful outpouring from acoustic and electric strings, piano and percussuion, in accordance with Lemalu’s words: – Te galu afi mua vaka! Oi Aue! Te lakilua! (“The first wave of fire!”), the music originally written by Utting for the Black Grace Dance Company to perform accompanied by inexperienced orchestra players needing plenty of electric and percussive support!  After this, the song Lota Nu’u, referred to by various people as Samoa’s second Nationa Anthem, was lullabic in effect, well chosen in this case by Gillian Deane, the music’s mood heightened by the singer’s suddenly raising the song’s emotional temperature with a single-toned upward modulation – a place where the request at the concert’s beginning for no applause before the interval was severely tested!

“Moving “with confidence to their own beat”, the players took Lemalu’s enjoiner to heart, the string-players augmenting the percussive outpourings with energetic angularity, the tumult assuming a kind of “thorn between two roses” character as it turned out, the speaker signalling the final homecoming with the words “The sound of our kiwis were heard”, and the leading strings standing to play Utting’s haunting “Goodnight Kiwi” set of variations. This was most engaging – we relished a remarkably free-ranging exploration by the players of tone, texture and rhythm, setting cosy nostalgia against zany humour, and rhythmic abandonment against semi-macabre disintegrations, the lump-in-throat “Hine e hine” melody flitting between the gaps at first, then sustained by the haunting voice of Jillian Tupuse, allowing her tones a variety of colourings and giving the music a “sliding”, Salvador Dali-like “do I wake or sleep?” aspect! –  all backdropped most poignantly by the original “Goodnight Kiwi “footage from TV One’s original close-down ritual – so very moving!

The programme’s second half was just as rich in a more variegated way, consisting of instrumental, orchestral, vocal and choral pieces designed to sound and celebrate the skills, both technical and musical, of players connected with the Virtuoso Strings. Introduced by the Trust’s chairman, James Faraimo,  the music of the half began with Handel’s The Trumpet Shall Sound, sung, of course by Lemalu (in excellent voice), and featuring the trumpet-playing of Nina Noble from Christchurch, a Deane Endowment scholar who will be attending the NZSM this year in Wellington – splendid playing from her, and a great and giving partnership between trumpet and voice, given that the  two are not normally positioned close together when the piece is performed as part of “Messiah”. Singers from Glenview School in Porirua East then performed a work by Christopher Tin, Kia Hora Te Marino, (Let Peace be widespread) with the added assistance from Isaac Stone and Tawa College’s Blue Notes Choir, making up a group of all ages, a full-blooded affirmation of positive feeling, the message punched out in no uncertain terms by an enthusiastic percussion section.

Came the Sinfonia for Hope’s appearance, the group consisting of musicians from various Wellington groups coming together to make music to raise funds for various humanitarian causes, and appearing on this occasion to support the Te Ata Festival’s celebration of youthful creativity. They firstly accompanied Lemalu in two characterful operatic arias, the subversive “La Calumnia” from Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”, and the boastful “O wie will ich Triumphiren” sung by the odious Osmin in Mozart’s “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail”, each one allowing the singer ample scope for vivid characterisation, which was achieved here with considerable elan. Then the group’s concertmaster, Martin Riseley, gave us a virtuoso performance of the last movement of Vivaldi’s “Summer” Concerto from “The Four Seasons”  with stirring support from the Sinfonia’s players.

After this was the Virtuoso Strings’ turn to accompany their patron, in two items I recalled from the previous year’s “Some Enchanted Evening” concert at the Wellington Opera House – here Lemalu seemed to me in better voice, negotiating the demands of “Ole Man River” from Jerome Kern’s “Showboat” with sonorous ease, and bringing a deep nostalgic feeling to Richard Rogers’ “Some Enchanted Evening from “South Pacific”, the singer again, I thought, freer and more detailed than in that previous performance.

Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban, the current Pasifika Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University of Wellington, and a recently-appointed trustee of Virtuoso Strings Charitable Trust made the most of a brief opportunity to speak to us, conveying her congratulations to the concert’s organisers and performers, before both orchestras came on stage for the final item This was Danzón No.2 by Arturo Márquez, a work from Mexico that has nevertheless gained currency as a “signature tune” for the Venezuelan Simon Bolivar Orchestra – Craig Utting rearranged the work’s scoring to include double string orchestra and piano to make up for the original’s lavish wind-and-brass parts. It all worked brilliantly under the leadership of conductor Andrew Atkins, from the sultry danzón  beginning of the piece, through the interplay between instrumental solos and tutti passages, right to the spirited pay-off at the end. The reception accorded the musicians by the audience at the concert’s conclusion capped off the excitement and enjoyment of the music-making evident throughout – altogether a heart-warming demonstration of youthful skills and energies brought out by the power of music!

NZSO, Gorecki and Ponifasio/MAU share singularly successful juxtaposing of utterly disparate creations, of profound common human vulnerabilities

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Festival of the Arts

“Chosen and Beloved”: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kristjan Järvi with MAU Wahine
Created by Lemi Ponifasio

Performers: MAU Wāhine
In white: Kahumako Rameka and Ria Te Uira Paki
In black: Rosie Te Rauawhea Belvie, Kasina Campbell, Terri Crawford, Rangipo Ihakara-Wallace, Anitopapa Kopua, Taiahotea Paki-Hill

Gorecki: Symphony No 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), with soprano Racha Tizk

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 21 February, 7:30 pm

It might have been slightly unusual to open a festival with a work (two works?) whose subject was the nature of woman, childbirth, even death, and dealing indirectly with one of the most terrible episodes in history.

However, it drew attention to the way in which this festival has been created and conceived. Substantially put together by three leading figures in the performing arts, ‘Guest Curators’, carefully chosen with attention to racial and cultural balance, and sheer imaginative and creative genius.

This concert was the inspiration of Lemi Ponifasio, ‘director and choreographer’. Though not a name very familiar to music audiences in New Zealand, he’s been involved for many years in performance activities that don’t match ordinary categories at international arts festivals, for example, at festivals at Avignon, Marseille, the Theater Der Welt and the Ruhr Triennale in Germany, at the Venice Biennale, for the opening of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi; in Noumea, and Sydney; and even an appearance at the 2012 festival in Wellington (which I didn’t see).

[You may be interested (I was) in the surprising history of MAU’s activities around the world: I copy an article in an appendix at the end.]

The Maori ‘ceremony’ from MAU Wahine
When the audience was allowed into the auditorium at 7:15 it was greeted at once with the performance, though there were no sounds. The stage itself delivered an immediate message: the entire back wall and choir stalls was shrouded by black curtains and a white sheet covered a four metre, or so, width of the stage extending from side to side in front of the empty orchestra seats. An array of rocks was scattered over it.

A woman in white, with long black hair (Kahumako Rameka), was walking very slowly from side to side, and she began to deliver a long lamenting whaikorero (a Karakia – about protection), about her origins, the different stages of birth and re-birth.

Soon two black-clad women appeared at the foot of aisles on either side of the balcony; they intoned first one then the other, though amplification made it difficult to tell who was singing, especially after five others appeared on the stage – that didn’t matter, but amplification removes that important aspect. However, the voices created a transcendent, ethereal effect that sought to avoid literal or precise understanding.

These were MAU Wahine, Ponifasio’s dance theatre company (‘Mau’ is the Samoan word meaning ‘the declaration of the truth’). For some time it bothered me that I could not understand their words, or at least their drift, but eventually I concluded that the women and a child in the arms was simply a reflection, or an anticipation, of the Gorecki composition, perhaps encompassing the experience of the loss of a child in awful circumstances. Gorecki said that his symphony was an evocation of the ties between mother and child, and I sensed that that might also have been the best way of interpreting the Mau ‘ceremony’ that had preceded it.

These were my own surmises, but I found myself taking it all very seriously, and I decided it would be useful to me as well as others if I could elaborate the meaning of what was happening.

So I contacted the Festival, asking whether members of the company could help my understanding (I could do this, not having a tight dead-line to adhere to). Very helpful information reached me later on Monday. I’m indebted to MAU Wahine for responding to my request.

I continue, with the benefit of their help.

When eventually a second white-clad woman appeared (Ria Te Uira Paki) with a baby in her arms, the message, expressed through their lamentations at the suffering and exploitation of women, chimed with the essential message of Gorecki’s music.

Ria Te Uira Paki delivered “a Pātere (chant), specifically Māreikura, perhaps the embodiment of the female essence. The word Māreikura can be translated or described as in all of its forms. The Pātere recites the genealogical connection to seven pro-dominant female entities within Māoridom and how they imbued their qualities within wāhine Māori. It talks of their journeys and connections being interwoven into our own feminine beings. It is a reminder of the feminine essence of Papatuanuku our terrestrial mother and the unbroken connection of the umbilical cord that  bonds us all the cosmic divine. A power, a strength and the beauty that we all hold and can conjure from within.”

My only uncertain criticism might have been of the length of this creation, with its quite protracted expanses of chant that ninety percent of the audience could not understand, even though its likely significance could be guessed at. Was it so different from the wordless 80 minutes of a Bruckner symphony or an extended liturgical work in Latin whose literal text is not understood in detail? In the end I dismissed this thought as a reasonable criticism.

The Gorecki Symphony
The words ‘Chosen and Beloved’ are taken from the first line of the first poem used in the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.

But first, some of Ponifasio’s words:
“In the ceremony of Chosen and Beloved, we greet and embrace those who have gone before us, and prepare to welcome those who are about to join us. We acknowledge the difficulties of the past, share our sufferings and hopes, and with deep empathy begin to construct together the world we wish for ourselves, and for the new generation.”

Gorecki is recorded as not wanting to write a symphony ‘about war’, dealing with the horrors of war; and so in no way does he display in this work, bitterness or hatred of the perpetrators of the three events that inspire the symphony’s three movements. He wanted his work to be heard as three independent laments, and not really like a symphony at all.

The famous words of the second movement were found on the wall of a Gestapo prison at Zakopane in southern Poland. The words used in the two other movements also had their origin in poems that touched, not on the horrors of war or the Holocaust, but on mothers’ grief for the loss of a son, probably in the Silesian Uprisings in 1919-21, and for the third movement, words from a folk song in which Mary speaks to Jesus dying on the cross.

Reading about the reactions to its original performances in the late 70s and even after the huge success of the famous Dawn Upshaw recording in 1991, the critical nastiness that was uttered comes as a surprise now, when devotion to the sterility of the avant-garde, dissonance, and serialism has largely disappeared. I recall the anger vented on some of the reviews I wrote at that time, unappreciative as I was of the slavishly disagreeable music composition students were expected to write then.

Gorecki himself had rejected the dictates of the avant-garde Inquisition; and it’s almost a surprise to observe how, in many ways there’s been  a return to the idea that music needs to engage audiences.

There’s much to be fascinated and moved by in the work: first, though the orchestra is quite large, with quadruple flutes, clarinets and bassoons, horns and trombones the range of instruments is limited: no oboes or trumpets, no timpani or percussion. Each string section is in two parts and often operate separately. One’s attention is drawn to that at the beginning as the first almost inaudible sound is from the double basses, taking about 15 minutes to move through all the strings and a sequence of keys each in a different mode. That sequence was followed in reverse before the soprano entered.

Racha Rizk is a Syrian with an attractive, ethereal soprano voice, that was beautifully suited to the lamenting quality of Gorecki’s music which in turn reflected the emotions of each of the verses.

She sang in a sort of isolation from the front of the balconies nearest the stage: first on the right, then on the left, and for the third movement, from a high, obscure platform in the middle of the black curtain that covered the entire wall behind the orchestra. That separation of voice from the orchestra meant that the balance between the two varied with each movement and according to ones’ seat in the auditorium. That is no criticism: merely an observation.

What might have been a bother for some was the array of fluorescent tubes suspended above the front and rear of the stage which probably affected the visibility of the stage for those in the centre of the balcony.

I was interested to read about Rizk’s background: Syrian classical music performers do not flood the concert halls and opera houses. The programme note included this (to me) interesting item:

After her exile in France due to the war in Syria, Racha is continuing her concerts in Europe with orchestras including the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra and ORNINA Orchestra, performing Syrian symphonic compositions in concert halls including the Berliner Konzerthaus, Bremen’s Die Glucke, Berlin Philharmonie and Athens Megaron.

In the hands of Kristjan Järvi the orchestra was electrifying in the extraordinarily restrained and spiritual passages (and there are really no other kinds of music in it). There’s a full hour of music, and it cast a spell over the audience, so that at the end when the entire back wall turned into a vivid cascade, the audience remained subdued.

The audience, uncertain about the end, clapped before the water ceased to flow and the lights came up, breaking off as they sensed that it was emotionally unfinished. So they clapped again when the real ending was signalled and the conductor rested his baton.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Lemi Ponifasio / ‘MAU Jerusalem Inside Us’

From the programme booklet for the Jerusalem concert on the following evening, which was more complete than the notes for Chosen and Beloved.

Lemi Ponifasio founded MAU in 1995 working with diverse cultures and communities around the world. His collaborators are people from all walks of life, performing in factories, remote villages, opera houses, schools, marae, castles, galleries and stadiums. Mau is the Samoan word meaning the declaration of the truth.

Lemi Ponifasio is acclaimed internationally for his radical work as a choreographer, stage director and designer, and for his collaborations with many communities.

The projects have included fully staged operas, theatre, dance, exhibitions, community forums and festivals in more than 30 countries.

He has presented his creations with MAU in many places including Festival d’Avignon, Lincoln Center New York, BAM New York, Ruhrtriennale, LIFT Festival London, Edinburgh International Festival, Theater der Welt, Festival de Marseille, Theatre de la Ville Paris, Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, Holland Festival, Luminato Festival Toronto, Vienna Festival, Santiago a Mil Chile, the Venice Biennale and in the Pacific region.

His recent works include Love To Death (2020) with MAU Mapuche, Santiago Chile; KANAKA (2019) with Theatre Du Kanaky, New Caledonia; Mausina with MAU Wāhine for 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand (2018) and Standing In Time (2017) with MAU Wāhine; Die Gabe Der Kinder (2017) with children and community of Hamburg; Ceremony of Memories (2016 and 2017) with MAU Mapuche of Chile; Recompose (2016) with MAU Wāhine and Syrian women for Festival Herrenhausen, Hanover; Lagimoana Installation (2015) for the Venice Biennale 56th Visual Arts Exhibition; Apocalypsis, Toronto (2015); I AM: Mapuche, Chile (2015) and I AM for the 100th Anniversary of WW1 (2014), which premiered at Festival d’Avignon.

Other major international performance tours by Lemi Ponifasio and MAU include The Crimson House (2014), Stones In Her Mouth (2013), the opera Prometheus by Carl Orff (2012), Le Savali: Berlin (2011), Birds With Skymirrors (2010), Tempest: Without A Body (2008), Requiem (2006) and Paradise (2005).

 

Appendix 2

From The New Zealand Herald

From an interview with Lemi Ponifasio before the performance at the New Zealand International Arts Festival in 2012

Birds With Skymirrors …..

“Some people think I am God, some people think I am the devil,” says choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, whose Birds With Skymirrors will cast his usual controversial spell, this time over Wellington’s St James Theatre for two nights of the New Zealand International Arts Festival.

Ponifasio and his dance theatre company Mau – which he prefers to speak of in terms of “community”, just as he repels the label of “performance” for his work – are far more feted in Europe than in New Zealand. Mau is a regular highlight of all the great arts festivals, biennales, triennales and “festspieles” of Europe, but it will be his first time at the New Zealand festival.

“Well, well,” he says, with the sly, characteristic smile than might mean amusement, cynicism – or pain.

The title Birds With Skymirrors was inspired by the apocalyptic sight of frigate birds flying over the ocean off Tarawa Island, in the Pacific, carrying glittering pieces of black plastic waste in their beaks, the ripped plastic looking like liquid mirrors.

The momentous issue of climate change, and the global discussions and negotiations about the future of the planet, were already on Ponifasio’s mind, and a subject he wanted to work with. “The frigate birds provided the symbolic image,” he says. “Birds have long been attached to our desire to be free.”

The resulting work, a powerful reflection on our connection with our environment, expressed through dance, poetry, ceremony, chant and oratory, premiered in Europe in 2010.

Formerly based at the Corban Estate in West Auckland, where he also regularly held the extraordinary Mau Forums, Ponifasio declares himself a failure in that he no longer has a home in New Zealand, the Pacific heart-spring and source of inspiration for all he does. “I have had to go international to survive,” he says.

Ponifasio is back in New Zealand briefly, between extensive European engagements, to find a new base, probably in South Auckland. The constant travelling between New Zealand and Europe is difficult for his immediate family and for his Mau family. And expensive.

“I am working on it, it will come,” he says. “The nature of current work in New Zealand has been that of a production line that I don’t fit. Europe has a bigger capacity to take on something provocative, something more than just arts and crafts and the entertainment industry.”

Born and raised in Samoa until he was 15, he came to New Zealand to complete his formal education, living in a Catholic priory until he was 21. But it is the experience of living in the natural world far more than human-made cultures and religious ideologies that inform Ponifasio’s unique voice. It is a voice that reflects the primal drama of the rhythms of the earth, the cycles of light and dark, life and death, rain and sun, the moon, the cosmos and mankind’s vulnerability, struggles, rituals, strange ceremonies and surrender within.

“To negotiate this exchange in life, Samoan parents tell their children the most important motto: to teu le va – to tender the space, to reverence the space, to be the space, to beautify the space, to embellish the space,” he says. “This is relational space, consciousness, a cosmological relationship with all existence. We call this ‘va’.”

Mau Forum 2010 took place at Schloss Charlottenberg, a historic palace in Berlin, and illustrates Ponifasio’s va in action.

“Not long ago, not far from this place, the people of Berlin exhibited Samoan people, like animals, in their zoo,” Ponifasio said on that occasion, “and not long ago, the people of Berlin came all the way down to Samoa and dominated and colonised the Samoan people.

“So it is very important that today we welcome and host the people of Berlin with respect, ceremony, theatre and art and share a meal, to allow for the clearing of space and the harmonising of spirit – so the work can begin.”

Ponifasio aims, he says, for “transformation”, which is equal parts prayer and political activism.

His work Tempest: Without a Body featured New Zealand’s own “face of terror” Tama Iti and terrorist suspect (since exonerated) Ahmed Zaoui.

“I make work for those who love this kind of work,” he says, “and for those who don’t like it, it is something to talk about. Art is not enough. I don’t want to make myself an artist. It has to be the path of love, the path of activism and its origins have to be in the community.”

Mau’s most recent work, Le Savali: Berlin, prompted French newspaper Le Figaro to propose Lemi Ponifasio as “the new miracle” on the choreographic landscape.

Ponifasio returns to Germany this year to produce his first opera, Carl Orff’s Prometheus, for the Ruhr Triennial 2012.

 

Big audience for the first NZSO Shed series avoiding the mainstream classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Shed Series: Symmetries

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich

Brahms: Hungarian Dances No 1 and 3 (orchestrated by the composer)
Lissa Meridan: Tuning the head of a pin
Mozart: Divertimento No 11 in D, K 251 – Rondo
Birtwistle: Bach Measures from eight Chorale Preludes from the Orgelbüchlein:
Russell Peck: Drastic Measures, II. Allegro
John Adams: Fearful Symmetries

Shed 6, Wellington Waterfront

Friday 31 January, 7:30 pm

The idea of using the first of its Shed concerts to open the NZSO’s 2020 series proved a winner, as there was a bigger audience than I’ve seen at these before and the result was an endorsement of the idea of a less than formal affair to attract a different audience. Everyone I spoke to agreed that it had attracted people you wouldn’t see in the Michael Fowler Centre which has – mistakenly of course – the reputation of hosting forbidding, heavy-weight music.

It followed the same pattern as other Shed concerts: a mixture of light classical pieces, easy to grasp, some as the composer wrote them, some as a composer of today had arranged or transformed them. No ‘pop’ music but music influenced by jazz and pop styles, as well as a couple of contemporary pieces by a New Zealander and others.

Two of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances put the audience at rest, played in a genial manner, without too much finesse, but plenty of energy and rhythm.

Tuning the head of a pin
Though Lissa Meriden graduated from Auckland University she spent a few years as leader of the Sonic Arts Progamme at Victoria University from 2000, and is now based in Paris. Tuning the head of a pin was written in 2002, but according to McKeich it had not been performed here. As well as the usual chamber orchestra, it demands a huge and fascinating range of percussion. Such scoring sometimes seems merely a way of showing off a composer’s versatility without making the music more interesting or exciting. But I soon found myself more than a little absorbed by a sense evolution, in which the musical ideas did actually make use of exotic instrumental sounds inevitable. The spectacular scoring slowly played itself out and strings and winds introduced some comfortably diatonic sounds. Strong, highly varied rhythms continued but an agreeable character sustained it, holding the attention and I found myself rather delighted by the whole composition. Not least, it made clear that its successful performance demanded a versatile and well resourced orchestra.

Mozart Divertimento
The fifth movement from Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K 251 followed: a nice illustration of one of the clearest classical forms – the Rondo. It happily involved charming tunes that would, I hope, have been enjoyed by a not especially knowledgeable audience, though that is a dangerous observation as I had the feeling that many of the audience were musically very aware if not erudite. It was an excellent piece to end the first bracket.

Birtwistle on Bach
The second set of pieces, after the first interval as the orchestra moved to the south end of the space, opened with the arrangements by Harrison Birtwistle of five of Bach’s 45 Chorale Preludes (variously, between BWV 599 and 639). They were orchestrated with an eye (ear) to the unusual, perhaps even the eccentric. But in spite of such a first impression, one maintains an open mind and I found myself oddly intrigued by them; which is not to say I thought Bach emerged very intact or prominent at times. But that’s irrelevant as there would be little point in a major composer devoting time to such an exercise if the original work was still very audible and he hadn’t contributed something significant.

It was another opportunity for the reduced NZSO to exibit its brilliant versatility with unusual scoring.

Drastic Measures
A saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone) then appeared on a low platform in the middle of the shed, to play the second movement, Allegro, of Drastic Measures, a jazz-style piece by Russell Peck. Spiky, witty, immediately attractive, and played with panache, it struck me as a particularly successful case of cross fertilisation by a fertile composer, at home with jazz but not tempted into hyper-intellectual, avant-garde idioms. It ended with a sudden calm and a gentle smile. I was drawn to explore Peck’s music on YouTube and was even more attracted to the first movement of the piece, Cantabile e molto rubato.

After a second interval the orchestra returned to the north end. I hadn’t fully grasped McKeich’s first rather sketchy programme announcements, and it took a few moments to realise that here were the last three of Birtwistle’s eight Chorale Preludes. Having had an hour to acclimatise to the earlier pieces I found this second group kind-of familiar. Each piece expressed a distinct idea or emotion and I suspect someone who studied the words of the chorales themselves, would be able to recognise their musical interpretation.

Adams’s Fearful Symmetries
Then came the piece that was probably most looked-forward-to: John Adams’s Fearful Symmetries.  (Do you notice the fashion for music titles using two-word, abstract notions?) It arrests the listener from the first moment, though I confess that I’d never heard it before. But I recognised close relatives such as Adams’s Chairman Dances and Reich’s Three Movements. It’s driven by an incessant, heavy rhythmic pulse, that easily conjures the sounds of high speed trains such as exists in a YouTube recording of the Reich music, perhaps with the wonderful throb of a steam locomotive. Though there are long stretches with little variation, the changes are actually very marked over its 25 minutes and it holds the listener transfixed. Like most minimalist music, the changes, a single chordal shift or the arrival of different instrument, though no instrument had special attention. Those subtle changes of timbre and dynamics removed any risk of tedium, and the acoustic, lighting and general atmosphere suited the performance admirably.

If I’ve had reservations about programmes of earlier Shed concerts, and can think of many delightful dance-like pieces I’d prefer to the Brahms dances, this scored very high and might have proven the Shed project beyond doubt.

“Cello for Africa” at Porirua City a spectacular and moving multi-cultural collaborative event

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Sinfonia for Hope presents:
CELLO FOR AFRICA – a multi-institutional and multi-cultural collaboration
Director – Donald Maurice

Performing Individuals and Groups:
Te Kura Māori o Porirua (kapa haka and waiata)
Inbal Megiddo, Rolf Gjelsten, Jane Young (cellos) Stringendo (director: Donald Maurice)
Linkwood Guitar Duo (Jane Curry and Owen Moriarty)
Sam Manzana (Congo drum)
Virtuoso Strings (directors – Craig Utting and Elizabeth Sneyd)
Cellophonia (director – Inbal Meggido)
Amalia Hall (violin), Tinashe Chidanyika and Sarah Hoskyns (mbira)
Ruby Solly (taonga puoro), Hannah Neman (percussion)
Lyrica Choir, Kelburn Normal School (director – Nicola Holt)
Sinfonia for Hope  (conductor: Hans Huyssen)
Heleen du Plessis (‘cello)

Music by Antonio Vivaldi, Jack Body, Craig Utting, Anthony Ritchie, Hans Huyssen

Guest Speakers:
Dr.Taku Parai (Chairman, Kaumātua, Ngāti Toa)
Her Worship Anita Baker, Mayor of Porirua
Associate Professor Hon. Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban
Professor Sunny Collings, Dean and Head of Wellington Campus, University of Otago
Professor Donald Maurice, director of Sinfonia for Hope

Te Rauparaha Arena, Porirua City

Sunday, 24th November, 2019

“Cello for Africa” was, in the words of co-organisers Heleen du Plessis and Donald Maurice, an event designed “to bring people from different cultures together using music, and specifically, ‘cellos, to help create a platform for cultural interaction and human connection in support of causes in Africa”. The concert’s specific target was to raise funds for a school established in Nairobi five years ago, the Tamariki Education Centre, by New Zealander Denise Carnihan (who was present at the concert).

The event brought together four youth performance groups augmented by a goodly number of professional performers to perform, among other things, at least one world and one New Zealand performance premiere (not a Venn diagram in words – I meant TWO separate pieces!). New Zealand composer Anthony Ritchie contributed the world “first” with his piece “Kia Kaha Tamariki”, and South African composer Hans Huyssen the New Zealand premiere of his “Concerto for an African ‘Cellist”. There was a Vivaldi concerto for two ’cellos, a work for two guitars by Jack Body, and a piece for strings called “Goodnight Kiwi” by Craig Utting. And extending the diversity of the occasion were various haka and waiata performed by Te Kura Māori o Porirua Kapa Haka, a colourful sequence of Congo drumming by master percussionist Sam Manzanza, and a bracket of songs performed by Kelburn Normal School’s Lyrica Choir, directed by Nicola Holt.

We were welcomed at the outset by Dr Taku Parai, the Ngāti Toa Chairman and Kaumātua, accompanied by Ranei Parai and the splendid Te Kura Māori o Porirua Kapa Haka group. I was struck by the similarities in places between the sound of the Maori chant and some of the Gregorian chant I’d heard, with similar nuances and impulses in places, and underlined by the plangency of the young women’s tones – by contrast the haka passages were incisive and striking for different reasons! After the group had moved off to the side in the time-honoured manner, the Mayor of Porirua, Her Worship Anita Baker spoke to us, most impressively, drawing resonant parallels between Ntairobi in Kenya, and Porirua, here in New Zealand, and welcoming our support for the “Cello in Africa” venture. At this point I felt it would have been good for the event to have had a properly-appointed MC, merely to provide a kind of ongoing flow during the transitions between the numbers – the members of the Stringendo group simply “appeared” with the continuo ‘celllist, Jane Young, after whom came the two soloists for the next item, ‘cellists Inbal Megiddo and Rolf Gjelsten, together with conductor, Donald Maurice.

The two soloists began the work vigorously and adroitly, Megiddo taking the more assertive lead with Gjelsten seeming somewhat “laid back” of projection in reply, both in this way most effectively “terracing” the exchanges, while Jane Young’s continuo kept a watching brief over the exchanges. The tutti passages had great effect, with the extra weight of numbers producing a real “What does the crowd think?” kind of response in the sound’s impact – I’m certain the spontaneous applause at the first movement’s end would have underlined for the players our enjoyment. The slow movement featured the soloists and continuo only, the players again differentiating their lines via a fetching minor-key melody, with Megiddo’s sumptuous tones stimulating a thoughtful, more circumspect response from her companion. Some of the younger players weren’t expecting or had forgotten about a repeat in the music, as several moved to make a grand tutti entry at one point, but lowered their bows again when the music turned on its tracks and repeated a second-half section – very sweet! The younger players got their chance at the “true” beginning of the finale, playing the repeated theme as the soloists overlaid the  music with decorative passages, then intensifying the repetitions with a couple of modulations – all sounding very daring on their part, and garnering considerable applause at the end!

Next was a transcription for two guitars by Jack Body, made from recordings of the Madagascan “vahila”, a kind of “zither” made from a bamboo tube, and regarded by many as the country’s “national” musical instrument. A tumbling, rhythmically teasing piece called “Ramandriana”, it kept shifting its emphasis and thus varying its gait, the players, Jane Curry and Owen Moriarty, finding a wealth of variation of tone and timbre, which would have stemmed from the original instrument recording. (The duo should, I think, have been at least introduced to the audience as “The Linkwood Guitar Duo”, but, again, there was no “MC”.There were names and  information in the programme to be sure, but again, a welcoming voice would have, I think, made a more easeful difference.

We were delighted to welcome Sam Manzanza, the Congloese drummer, resident in New Zealand since the 1980s, where he’s been popularising traditional African music for a number of years with his AfroBeat Band – here he was performing solo with a single drum, and producing an amazing variety of sounds , accompanying his rhythmic patternings with various chants, and encouraging audience participation most successfully! Continuing on an African “wave”, we responded warmly to the next speaker, Associate Professor Hon. Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban’s congratulations to South Africa for winning the World Rugby Cup! Her acknowledgement of the work of the organisers of this evening’s concert also elicited an enthusiastic response, as did her confirmation of the Te Ata Festival Project for 2020.

Composer, and co-director of Virtuoso Strings, Craig Utting introduced his ensemble in preparation for the nest item, a version of TV NZ’s famous shutting-down-transmission piece, “Goodnight Kiwi”. Accompanied by the lowering of lights for the music’s beginning, the piece established an all-energies-spent feeling, the string figurations drowsy and  droopy at the phrase-ends, the fragments of one phrase answering another across the vistas created by the ensemble standing in a wide half-circle to perform. The music suddenly energised into angular waltz-like movement, the rhythms and themes lazily dovetailing, its bitter-sweet ambience underlined by a “wilting” kind of inclination, until finally a driving, toccatalike 7/4 rhythm awoke a voice singing the famous Hine e hine words, with heartfelt feeling – the singer beautifully maintained her line and steadiness of tone , right until darkness overtook the music and the players on the stage………

After an interval, and a welcome and brief address from the Dean and Head of Otago University’s Wellington Campus, Professor Sunny Collings, we were treated to composer Anthony Ritchie’s Kia Kaha Tamariki, a musical tribute to the Kenyan School whose founding five years ago in Nairobi has changed the lives of so many African children. The work (a world premiere) was performed here by Cellophonia (40+ cellists!) along with violinist Amalia Hall, cellist Inbal Megiddo, mbira players Tinashe Chidanyika and Sarah Hoskyns, taonga puoro player Ruby Solly, and percussionist Hannah Neman.

Ritchie’s work emphasised the ideas of exchange and accessibility of different musical sounds – a pity the orchestral “platform” was so far away from its audience, across the vistas of what was another performing-space, as it reduced the visceral effects of the more exotic instruments, such as a view of “how they were being played” (the Huyssen Concerto which concluded the evening had a similar kind of “removed” aspect to it – we were, indeed, in the same “space” as the performers, but arguably with too much “air” between us all!). Still, the sounds made an impact, and the conventional and exotic instruments created wholly unique worlds,  even if I felt the music sounded more “Caribbean” than African (ethnomusicologists may well apply to have my travel visas revoked upon reading that statement, though it’s just my (admittedly uninformed) opinion!).

Moments of “Elgarian-sounding” string-writing for the ‘cellos rubbed shoulders with more exotic rhythms and timbres as the non-string-players took up their instruments, the whole given an additional ambient context by Ruby Solly’s taonga puoro sounds. After a colourful sequence featuring the more exotic instruments alone, the drums intensified the rhythms and the cellos intoned an eminently singable/danceable melody, immediately suggesting a ready response in kind from listeners – the work was rounded off by a brief irruption of percussive impulse and gesture – altogether a direct and approachable tribute to a worthwhile cause.

There were hurryings and scurryings from certain people in preparation for the next item, the outcome seeming a little Houdini-esque as it turned out, with everybody’s attention focused on a completely different entrance to that through which the members of Lyrica (Kelburn Normal School Choir) and its director, Nicola Holt, finally appeared! – the group sang three songs bringing out poignancies and sweet colourings in the first two and plenty of rhythmic energy in the third, all accompanied on an electric piano most adroitly played by Nicole Chao, though I thought the second song, a lullaby could have just as effectively been performed voices-only. The choir recently took part in the Orpheus Choir of Wellington’s performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana, which I attended, and remember enjoying the children’s singing a great deal.

I wondered whether programming a fully-fledged three movement instrumental concerto at the end of a tumultuous evening was the best course, as the attrition rate among the audience was certainly noticeable at that stage, despite people’s best efforts – still, the work was meant to be symbolic of a fusion of voices and languages and cultures, and therefore judiciously placed at the concert’s climax. It represented a herculean effort of technique, emotion and crossover sensibility on the part of the solo cellist, Heleen du Plessis, who gave what sounded like a totally committed performance, from the “Partida”, or exploratory opening movement in which she enabled her instrument to “speak its language”, through the exchanges with other instruments over the second and third sections (the latter movement including a vocalised section from mbira-player Tinashe Chidanyika), and into the final Mapfachapfacha (in the Zezuru language, “a sudden arrival of many”), which sounded like a celebration of the coming together of diverse voices.

Composer Hans Huyssen’s use of non-standardised instruments (and the human voice) as constituent parts of such a formalised composition as a “concerto” has plenty of precedent in Western music, as witness, for example, the various instances of use of such things in the Mahler symphonies. And there were precedents of all kinds for the use of voices in such works as well, from Beethoven onwards, giving the words intoned by the orchestra players at the end of this work, referring to the music’s journey in search of a commonality amid the diversity, and its discovery within, their own unique resonances – the whole occasion generated so much warm feeling it was difficult to be analytical or judgemental regarding what we had heard! Its task, as far as I could discern from everybody’s response at the evening’s conclusion, was completed most successfully.