New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Conal Coad Kenneth Young
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Conal Coad Kenneth Young 1 - 7. Ruaumoko 27.36
1. I. Te Ngahuru (Autumn) 5.34
2. Te Ru Tuatahi (First Earthquake) 1.09
3.
4. Te Ru Tuarua (Second Earthquake) 0.59
5. III. Te Koanga (Spring) 6.34
6. Te Ru Tuatoru (Third Earthquake) 1.17
7. IV. Te Raumati (Summer) 6.00
II. Te Takurua (Winter) 6.08
8. Orakau 13.28 9. Rangitoto
6.00
10. Te Papa
9.52
11. Beowulf
9.50
67.20
Total Duration
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Conal Coad Kenneth Young
(1997) I Te Ngahuru (Autumn) Percussion Interlude – Te Ru Tuatahi (First Earthquake) II Te Takurua (Winter) Percussion Interlude – Te Ru Tuarua (Second Earthquake) III Te Koanga (Spring) Percussion Interlude – Te Ru Tuatoru (Third Earthquake) IV Te Raumati (Summer)
Of Ruaumoko, subtitled ‘South Pacific Seasons’, the composer writes: ‘Ruaumoko, god of earthquakes, was the youngest son of Papatuanuku, the Earth. When Papa and Rangi (his father, the sky) were separated, he remained unborn in Papa’s womb. From his subterranean dwelling he would shake the body of his mother, and in doing so cause the seasons to change. Together
with Hinewera, the goddess of fire, he celebrates the birth of the new through the destruction of the old. ‘In the autumn (Te Ngahuru), Ruaumoko turns over in the Earth to bring the cold to the surface. With a great rumble, Te Ngahuru becomes the fierce storms of Te Takurua, the winter. Following another stupendous roar of the earth, the temper of the storm melts into the calm of Te Koanga, the spring. Ruamoko turns and brings the warmth once again, and with a final trembling clatter, the summer (Te Raumati) bursts through to shine down upon the earth and complete the cycle.’ Ruaumoko was commissioned by the Wellington Sinfonia.
(1999) Conal Coad - Bass Of the genesis of this work, Conal Coad writes: ‘More than sixty years ago my father Leon, school teacher, poet and painter, was teaching in the tiny Maori school of Otukou. Immersed in the history and tradition of the Maori at a time when New Zealand was experiencing the hostilities of the Second World War, he became fascinated with the epic battle of Orakau – a symbol of courage for a nation. His poem Dead Leaves of Orakau was published in March 1941 in Art in New Zealand. ‘In March 1998, I attended a private soirée at which Gareth Farr’s piano trio Ahi received its premiere performance. It was an arresting musical experience for me. Speaking with the composer afterwards, I admitted to him that I had long wanted to add a musical setting of my father’s poem to my concert repertoire, and I was delighted when he expressed an interest in the concept. Also present was Jenny Gibbs, arts patron and friend, who, intrigued with the proposal, offered to fund the project. From this felicitous occasion Orakau was born. ‘Although initially conceived as a work for twenty players, in October 1999 it was a full symphony orchestra that appeared on the Auckland Town Hall stage for the world premiere of Orakau.’
Five times the red tide swept about their feet Whose savage stamping shook the land with war, Five times repulsed, it swept back in retreat, Like patient waves upon a stubborn shore. Three days they faced our onslaughts and our shell, Our hand grenades and Enfield’s ceaseless fire; With hunger, heat, and thirst they suffer hell, Yet call us back to fight when we’d retire. Our cannons spit their hate at earthen walls, The choking dust that rises overhead Hangs still, like lazy smoke, then slowly falls To shroud about the bodies of their dead. No Spartans fought to save Thermopolae With quicker courage nor at greater odds Than Maori fought the Pakeha this day, Their last defence against encroaching gods, We offer them the soldier’s one excuse— Down their arms, come out and then deliver. But honour deem they greater than a truce, Rewi’s voice rings out without a quiver: Heoi ano! Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake. Enough, enough! We fight right on, for ever, ever, ever.
Our infantry resumes its angry quest, The heavy guns take up the bitter fight. And now the shadows lengthen from the west And day reluctantly gives place to night. Then suddenly upon our trench appeared To bound above our heads in one mad leap Our wily foe, retreating, as we’d feared, Before the morrow’s sun awoke from sleep. But now the cavalry outside our line Are ready with their mounts to take the field – So heading them and baulking their design Cut from their flank a bitter heavy yield. Half fall from out that wild and gallant rush, They ask no quarter, give no inch of ground, Half disappear within the fern and brush And fade into the darkness closing round…. Defeated, they had left us their redoubt, Its broken earthworks as the spoils of war! Their deathless pride of race we did not rout, And Rewi’s answer rings for ever more: Heoi ano! Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake. “Leon Coad, 1942. Used by permission of the estate of the author. “
Conal Coad Born in Feilding, New Zealand, Conal Coad commenced his vocal training in Auckland before attending the Opera School of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and Opera Studio of The Australian Opera, where he sang a number of roles before moving to Europe. Since settling in Belgium he has performed regularly with the Opéra de Wallonie and the Royal Flemish Opera, as well as making frequent appearances in France and Israel. In recent years he has not only been a regular performer with the major companies of Australasia, but has also continued to perform in Britain, the USA and Europe. Coad’s repertoire of over 80 operas includes many of the comic operas of Rossini and Donizetti, and he has a particular affinity with the operas of Britten, whose works he has performed at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; La Fenice, Venice; Washington Opera; Teatro San
Carlo, Naples; and Opera Australia. Conal Coad is also a frequent performer on concert platforms around the world. Leon Coad Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in1912. Leon Coad attended both Canterbury and Victoria Universities. He was an enthusiastic poet, painter and historian as well as a keen skier and tramper. Married to Margaret Shortall in 1941, Coad spent the bulk of his working life teaching with her in many remote Maori settlements, including Otukou, Ohautira, Aramiro and Rahiri. Leon Coad’s love of the bush and New Zealand’s remoter locations meant he immersed himself in the many activities of these tiny communities, and he and Margaret came to be valued for contributions far beyond their teaching roles. He died in 1967 at the early age of 51. He is remembered by his three children and by his many friends as a true New Zealand ‘renaissance man’.
(1999) Rangitoto was originally commissioned to be a part of a spectacular open-air show to mark the passing of the millennium, and was a musical representation of the eruption of Rangitoto Island in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf during the 14th century. For this performance, the four percussionists of the Strike ensemble were suspended in a cage 200 feet above the audience, and kept time with the orchestra below by the use of radio headsets. The work was revised for the concert hall in 2003, and although the composer has said that ‘the four solo parts would have been too dominating indoors, so I have eliminated them and incorporated the material into the orchestral percussion parts’, a concertgoer at the first performance of this version observed that it was the loudest piece he had ever heard performed by a symphony orchestra. Rangitoto was commissioned by Inside Out productions for the This Is It millennium celebrations.
Te Papa (1996)
(1996) Of this work, the composer writes: ‘The poem forming the text of Te Papa, Charm, dates from the mid 19th century, a time when all Europeans were recent visitors to New Zealand. By an anonymous author, it seems likely that it was a translation by settlers of a Maori original, suggesting that the new inhabitants felt the same way as Maori people about the land of Aotearoa. ‘The thing that struck me about Charm when I first read it was the wonderful concept of “the spirit of the land”, te wairua o te whenua. The land is our mother; she cares for all of her children. We have all at some point in time been a stranger to this land and, as visitors, we have all been welcomed by her.
‘We now live in a unique multi-cultural society. Our many and varied contemporary art forms reflect this fact, and represent something that could only be created here. In Te Papa, composed for the opening of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, I have sought to recognise the similarities and differences of all of the cultures of New Zealand. It is a musical analogy to my ideal that cultures can co-exist without overshadowing or changing one another. And finally, it is a musical celebration of the fact that we have all ended up on the same soil.’
I arrive where an unknown earth is under my feet I arrive where a new sky is above me I arrive at this land A resting place for me O spirit of the earth! The stranger humbly offers his heart As food for thee. Ka tu ahau irunga I te papa tau hou Ka tu ahau iraro I te rangi hou A ko Aotearoa Hei kainga tuturu moku Ko te wairua ote whenua Te tangata tau hou Ka homai te aroha kia ahau Hei oranga moku.
From 100 New Zealand Poems, edited by Bill Manhire (Auckland: Godwit, 1993), and translated into Maori by Tamatai Ngarimu.
Deborah Wai Kapohe Deborah Wai Kapohe was born in Winton, Southland. She studied at the Universities of Otago and Auckland and in 1995 was guest artist at the Australian Opera Young Artists programme where she studied with resident and guest coaches. Since 1998 she has worked with pianist and vocal coach David Harper. Wai Kapohe has performed operatic roles with all the professional opera companies in New Zealand, as well as for OzOpera, opera Australia and ChamberMade in Australia. Equally comfortable in opera by contemporary composers, she has created roles in Outrageous Fortune by New Zealand composer Gillian Whitehead, Wide Sargasso Sea by Brian Howard and Gauguin by Michael Smetanin, and she was the Child in Grandma’s Shoes by Graeme Koehne. She has performed in concert with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, toured for Chamber Music New Zealand and performed in a number of prestigious performances in London and other centres. Her debut album Canciones Espaùolas was released by Trust Records in 2002 (MMT2038).
Richard Greager Christchurch-born tenor Richard Greager studied with Maestro Antonio MorettiPananti at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and moved to London in 1973 where he sang as principal tenor with Scottish Opera and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. In 1980 he also became a principal guest artist with Opera Australia and for the next ten years divided his career between Australia and Europe, appearing in most of the major opera houses. In 1989 he returned to live in the United Kingdom. He worked throughout Europe and sang several major roles at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, including creating the role of King Arthur in Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s highly acclaimed opera Gawain which premiered in 1993 and won the prestigious Gramophone Contemporary Recording Award in 1996.
Since returning to New Zealand in 1995 he has worked with all the major New Zealand and Australian opera companies, choirs and orchestras as well as singing major tenor roles in the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. Recently he has performed in highly successful productions of Wozzeck (Berg) and Salome (Strauss) for Opera Australia. In 2004 he performed the role of Mime in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle in Adelaide, South Australia.
Mere Boynton Mere Tokorahi Boynton is a singer and actor. She has had formal vocal training at the Conservatorium of Music in Wellington, but her desire to sing in te reo Maori and her experience in Maori performing arts and music have meant that Mere has developed a style of singing that draws on both her classical training and her taha Maori.
Some of her most memorable singing engagements to date have been singing and touring nationwide in the dance opera Jerusalem by Michael Parmenter; singing in Te Rangimarie which was composed for the Gisborne Millennium celebrations and featured Kiri Te Kanawa; performing the role of Frasquita in Carmen (Bizet); and singing in the acclaimed movie Te Tangata Whairawa o Weneti (The Maori Merchant of Venice). Her debut album, Waikohu, was released by Trust Records in 2005 (MMT2034).
(2000) This work is inspired by an event described in the Old English epic poem of the same name. After battling the monster Grendel, the legendary hero Beowulf slays its mother, a fearsome underwater creature: ‘…Upon that water they saw then many of the serpent brood and strange sea-dragons exploring those depths, and also water-monsters lying on the slopes of the crags. ‘…Then all at once she who for a hundred seasons had kept watch on the broad sweep of the floods in her cruel hunger, grim and greedy, realised that some human being from up above was exploring the lair of alien creatures. She grasped him, she clutched the warrior in a terrible lock. ‘…The daring champion of the Scyldings, savage and cruelly grim, grasped the hilt and its fastening and drew the blade with coiling patterns. Recking nothing for his own life, he struck so wrathfully that the sword took her hard on the neck and broke the rings of bone; the broadsword passed straight through her death-doomed flesh. She fell to the floor.The sword was gory; the warrior rejoiced at his work.’ Beowulf was commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
Gareth Farr was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He began his studies in composition and percussion performance at Auckland University. The experience of hearing a visiting gamelan orchestra prompted his return to Wellington to attend Victoria University, where the characteristic rhythms and textures of the Indonesian gamelan rapidly became hallmarks of his own composition. Farr continued with postgraduate study in composition and percussion at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where his teachers included Samuel Adler and Christopher Rouse. In 1993, at the age of 25, Farr was appointed composer-in-residence by Chamber Music New Zealand, the youngest-ever composer to hold that position. This resulted in the composition of three substantial works, Owhiro (String Quartet No.1), Kebyar Moncar (for gamelan) and the chamber sextet Cadenza. At the conclusion of the residence, Farr returned
to the Eastman School to begin a doctorate in composition. As well as composing Kembang Suling (for flute and marimba, his most popular work to date) and three works for orchestra during this time, Farr also introduced audiences to his on-stage alter ego, the percussion-playing drag queen Lilith Lacroix. The inclusion of his works in four events at the 1996 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts – the ballet score for Douglas Wright’s Buried Venus, Lilith’s Dream of Ecstasy, for orchestra, Kembang Suling, and the Bach-in-Bali piano solo Sepuluh Jari – kick-started his career as a dedicated freelance composer. Since then, his music has been heard at, or especially commissioned for high-profile events including the 50th anniversary of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (the 25minute From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs), the opening of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa,
a work hailed as ‘music with a powerful and moving impact that transcends idiom and individual taste’), and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney (Hikoi, a concerto for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the NZSO). Most recently, a commission by the 2003 Auckland Festival resulted in Stone and Ice, composed for the combined forces of the NZSO and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. Gareth Farr’s music is particularly influenced by his extensive study of percussion, both Western and non-Western. Rhythmic elements of his compositions can be linked to the complex and exciting rhythms of Rarotongan log drum ensembles, Balinese gamelan and other percussion music of the Pacific Rim. In addition to his music for the concert chamber, Farr has written music for dance, theatre and television. For more information, visit www.garethfarr.com The music of Gareth Farr is published exclusively by Promethean Editions: www.promethean-editions.com
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra enjoys a high profile as the country’s leading performance arts organisation. It gave its first public performance in March 1947 and its first (and current) Music Director, James Judd, was appointed in 1999. The orchestra attracts leading international conductors and soloists and gives over a hundred performances each year. These include seasons of major symphonic repertoire in seven centres, ‘heartland and mainland’ tours to smaller centres, and a wide range of ‘special’ programmes. It is involved in education programmes, performs family and schools concerts, accompanies major opera and ballet productions, and records for television, movies (including Lord of the Rings) and for Radio New Zealand. It commissions and performs New Zealand music and has a long recording history, which has seen it move into the world market and win international awards. The NZSO also administers the NZSO Chamber Orchestra, which has its own concert series and the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. Kenneth Young Kenneth Young is one of New Zealand’s leading conductors. He has established himself as a passionate and skilled interpreter of the Romantic and 20th-Century repertoire, and twenty years of practical orchestral playing have given him a specialised rapport with his colleagues. Himself a composer, he has a particular interest in post-Romantic repertoire, and he has received recognition for his recordings of New Zealand orchestral music.
Young took up the position of principal tuba with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and his experience as a conductor with the NZSO dates from 1985, culminating in his appointment as the orchestra’s conductor-in-residence early in 1993. In 2001 he resigned from the NZSO in order to pursue his conducting and composing career fulltime. Young has worked with all the regional orchestras throughout New Zealand, and his engagements with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra have included highly acclaimed recordings of the orchestral works of Edwin Carr, Gareth Farr, Douglas Lilburn, Lyell Cresswell and many others, and opera excerpts with the New Zealand tenor Keith Lewis. He has also regularly conducted seasons with the Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Outside New Zealand,Young has worked with the Queensland Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the City of Osaka Sinfonia, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his work as a performer and a conductor,Young has become one of New Zealand’s leading composers. Commissions from Chamber Music New Zealand, the NZSO, the International Festival of the Arts and Radio New Zealand have been performed nationwide and also in the United States, Europe and Australia. He has also been a member of the music faculty at Victoria University of Wellington since 1988.
Gabrielle Belz (b.1947), He Aho (2004), acrylic on canvas, 910 x 1010 mm. From the collection of Huia (New Zealand) Ltd. Reproduced by permission of the artist and Huia (New Zealand) Ltd. Photographer: Norman Heke. Photograph used by permission of the Toi Maori Aotearoa Collection.
Gabrielle Belz was born in Papakura, New Zealand, and has tribal affiliations to Nga Puhi and Te Atiawa. She is a full-time painter and printmaker, producing small edition prints using mainly the linocut reduction process. She has participated in many solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand and overseas. Belz has completed several major commissions, projects and installations around New Zealand. The imagery for He Aho was prepared by painting the landscape as seen from above. Threads, or aho, connect to the land, and create divisions through which appear visual imagery relating to the stories of the land and her people. The aho, along with the horizontal structure of the painting makes up the cloak that signal qualities of mana whenua, rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga – authority, prestige, and their affiliated responsibilities of guardianship and protection.
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Conal Coad Kenneth Young Recorded in the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, 29-31 May 2003, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Wellington, 15 November 2003, and in the Sounds Unlimited Studio, Wellington, 1 August 2003 and 22 April 2004. Producer Gareth Farr Recording Engineers Richard Hulse, Neil Maddever Post Production Wayne Laird Executive Producers Ross Hendy, Stuart Coats Design Cato Partners The HRL Morrison Music Trust gratefully acknowledges the support of the following people and organisations in the making of this recording: Toi Maori Aotearoa, the Auckland Philharmonia, Conal Coad.
The HRL Morrison Music Trust was established in March 1995 as a charitable trust to support New Zealand musicians of international calibre. All funds received by the Trust are used to make recordings, present concerts – both in New Zealand and overseas – and assist artists to undertake projects to further develop their talents. HRL Morrison Music Trust P O Box 1395 Wellington, New Zealand info@trustcds,com More information about other releases by the HRL Morrison Music Trust can be found at the internet site: www.trustcds.com
ALL RIGHTS OF THE PRODUCER AND OF THE OWNER OF THE WORK REPRODUCED ARE RESERVED. UNAUTHORISED COPYING, HIRING, LENDING, PUBLIC PERFORMANCE AND BROADCASTING OF THIS RECORDING IS PROHIBITED. THE MUSIC OF GARETH FARR IS PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY PROMETHEAN EDITIONS.
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Conal Coad Kenneth Young MMT2042
1 - 7. Ruaumoko 27.36
Digital Stereo Recording Š 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust
1. I. Te Ngahuru (Autumn) 5.34
2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust
2. Te Ru Tuatahi (First Earthquake) 1.09
3.
4. Te Ru Tuarua (Second Earthquake) 0.59
5. III. Te Koanga (Spring) 6.34
6. Te Ru Tuatoru (Third Earthquake) 1.17
7. IV. Te Raumati (Summer) 6.00
II. Te Takurua (Winter) 6.08
8. Orakau 13.28 9. Rangitoto 6.00 10. Te Papa 9.52 11. Beowulf 9.50
Total Duration
67.20