Taurangi: New Zealand Music for Flute and Piano

New Zealand Music for Flute and Piano

taurangi

Bridget Douglas and Rachel Thomson

1 1. Ka wawara te hau…

Ross Harris

10:47

2. Dialogue 1

John Elmsly

11:07

3. BADB

Michael Norris

6:44

4. The Snow Goose 5:05

John Ritchie 5. Taurangi

Gillian Whitehead

13:14

6-10. Little Dancings

Christopher Blake (i) Two and Three Dance

(ii) First Interlude

(iii) Mystic Dance

19:11

(iv) Second Interlude (Thai Drum Dance) (v) Perpetual

MMT2063-64 Digital Stereo Recording © 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust p 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust

6:15 1:13 6:25 1:08 4:08

2 MMT2063-64

1-4. Four Pooh Stories

Maria Grenfell

(i) Christopher Robin leads an Expodition

to the North Pole

(ii) Tigger comes to the Forest and has Breakfast

(iii) Pooh and Piglet go Hunting and nearly catch a Woozle

(iv) A House is built at Pooh Corner

5. Tui

Anthony Ritchie

6. Flute Song for the Birds

Dorothy Buchanan

7. Harakeke

Philip Brownlee

10:09 3:22 2:26 2:15 2:04

4:05 7:05 8:16

8-9. Sweet and Sour

John Ritchie (i)

(ii)

4:11

10. The Watertable

Chris Cree Brown

8:31

11-13 Three Doubles

John Elmsly (i) Tongue and Groove

(ii) Light and Shade

(iii) Air with Graces

7:20

14. Lament

Paul Booth

3:37

15. Tango Fantastique

Douglas Mews snr

3:11

2:45 1:25

2:22 2:42 2:14

1

Ross Harris (b.1945)

Ka wawara te hau… (2004)

Ross Harris was born in the small town of Amberley in North Canterbury. He was educated in Christchurch and attended the University of Canterbury before completing his tertiary education at Victoria University of Wellington. He was appointed a lecturer in music at Victoria University in 1971 and has recently taken early retirement to pursue a career as a freelance composer.

Ross Harris has written over 100 works including operas, songs, chamber music, electronic music, symphonic music and jazz. In 1985 he was awarded a QSM for Public Service following the premiere of his opera Waituhi (to a libretto by Witi Ihimaera). In 1990 he was awarded the Composers’ Association of New Zealand Citation for Services to New Zealand Music. He has been appointed to the position of Composer-in-Residence with the Auckland Philharmonia for 2005.

Ka wawara te hau… (‘The Wind Whispered…’) begins with sounds reminiscent of wind chimes and gentle murmuring of an Aeolian harp. A mysterious sound-world is created by the juxtaposition of microtonal and multiphonic inflections in the flute part with evocative piano resonances. The piece evolves through more vigourous flourishes and swirls until there is, finally, a return to the calm of the opening.

Ka wawara te hau… was commissioned by Bridget Douglas and Rachel Thomson (with funding support from Creative New Zealand).

John Elmsly (b.1952)

Dialogue 1 (1988)

John Elmsly graduated in mathematics and music from Victoria University of Wellington where he studied composition with David Farquhar and began work in electronic music with Douglas Lilburn. From 1975 to 1978 he held a postgraduate scholarship from the Belgian Ministry of Culture. In 1981 he was awarded the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago. He was appointed to the School of Music at the University of Auckland in 1984, where he is currently Associate Professor in Composition, director of the Karlheinz Company contemporary music ensemble, and director of the electronic music studios. He is a past president of the Composers’ Association of New Zealand, and he served on the executive committee of the Asian Composers’ League from 1997 to 2002.

John Elmsly has composed a wide variety of instrumental, vocal and electronic works, many of which have been commissioned by leading soloists and orchestras. Waiteata Music Press has published several of these, and a number of chamber and orchestral works are available on commercial recordings.

The musical material of Dialogue 1 is entirely derived from the piano’s opening rising triadic gesture, and the subsequent dialogue between melodic materi al derived from this and interjections of repeated-note patterns. The resulting musical style combines the appealing simplicity of triadic harmonies with the depth and richness of the shapes and colour made available by more chromatic processes.

There are three clear sections to the piece, signaled by the changes from flute to alto flute and back. The outer sections exploit the clarity and brilliance of the flute, while the middle section takes advantage of the rich cantabile of the larger (and hence deeperhued) alto flute to which the piano provides a gentle accompaniment built on a slowly contracting ostinato-like figure. There are several dialogues within the piece – between the triadic material and the repeated-note patterns within the fast sections, between the fast and slow sections (and correspondingly between flute and alto flute), and of course between the two performers themselves.

Dialogue 1 was commissioned by Uwe Grodd (with funding support from the QEII Arts Council and the New Zealand Composers’ Foundation) for performance at the 1988 International Festival of the Arts in Wellington.

Michael Norris (b.1973)

BADB (2005)

Michael Norris was born in Dunedin and studied composition at Victoria University of Wellington and City University, London. He was Composer-in-Residence with the Southern Sinfonia in 2001 and the Mozart Fellow at Otago University in 2002. His orchestral work Rays of the Sun, Shards of the Moon was awarded the 2003 Douglas Lilburn Prize. Norris is also co-founder and co-director of the Stroma new music ensemble. He lectures in composition and musicianship at Victoria University of Wellington.

Recent projects include a solo piano piece for Indonesian pianist Ananda Sukarlan, a piece for musical saw and tape for Dutch percussionist Arnold Marinissen, and a solo guitar work for British guitarist Michael McCartney. Future projects include a work for chamber ensemble and saxophone to be premiered by Stroma with Swiss saxophonist Lars Mlekusch, a new solo piano work for Stephen de Pledge and a concerto for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s 2006 season.

Badb (pronounced ‘bathv’, where ‘th’ is soft, as in ‘these’) was one of three wargoddesses of Irish legend. She variously assumed the guises of a beautiful woman, an old hag, and a carrion crow. Her manifestation in the latter form, appearing before a battle in anticipation of the carnage, was an omen of death.

There are three distinct types of material in this piece, portraying the three personalities of Badb: the sinuous, seductive sing-flute of the opening, which represents the femme fatale; the shrieks and battle-cries of the old hag, which were said to arouse fear and dread in the living; and the hideous crow, pecking at the flesh of the slain.

Much of the piano’s harmonic structure is derived from chords representing the crow in Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux, and the notes B, A and D feature prominently through the piece.

The piece is written for and dedicated to Bridget Anne Douglas (B-A-D) and Rachel Thomson, both legends in their own rights.

John Ritchie (b.1921)

The Snow Goose (1999)

John Ritchie was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He spent most of his working life in Christchurch where he conducted choirs and orchestras, taught at the university for forty years and composed music, much of which was for his own John Ritchie String Orchestra. As professor of music at the University of Canterbury he introduced resident string quartets from the USA, Czechoslovakia, England and New Zealand. He became deputy vice-chancellor for six years, was a visiting professor at Exeter University in 1967-68, was secretary-general of the International Society for Music Education from 1976-84 and later its president.

His compositional output includes the well-known Concertino for Clarinet, two Suites for Strings, the overture Papanui Road, a Saxophone Concerto, Partitas for Brass Quintet and Wind Octet, much choral music, works for brass band, fifty Christmas carols and dozens of fanfares.

A recording of his orchestral music, Aquarius, has been released by Trust Records (MMT2040).

The Snow Goose is a gentle tribute to the goose which, together with Philip Rhayader and Frith, is a central figure in Paul Gallico’s eponymous story of the Second World War. This feathered wanderer from Canada, rescued from the marshes of Essex by Frith, tamed and befriended by Rhayader, follows his boat as far as the beaches of Dunkirk.

Rescued soldiers would swear that if you saw the bird, you would eventually be saved.

The flute depicts the bird’s flight and its serenity, eventually to be interrupted by sounds of war and imminent tragedy. Both yacht and yachtsman perish. The bird wheels in salute and flies back to Frith, the empty landscape of the marshes and Rhayader’s crumbling lighthouse, subsequently to return to its native land.

In its original form (with orchestra) The Snow Goose was first performed in June 1982, the year of its composition, by flautist Pamela Keightley with the University of Canterbury Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer. This adaptation for piano and flute dates from 1999.

Gillian Whitehead (b.1941)

Taurangi (2000)

After studying with Peter Maxwell Davies, Gillian Whitehead worked as a freelance composer in Europe and Australia as well as in her native New Zealand. A steady stream of works over the years has established her as one of the most important composers working in the Australasian region. Her works include monodramas and operas, pieces for orchestra, choir and orchestra and other large ensembles as well as numerous chamber, choral, instrumental and solo works and, more recently, pieces with some improvisational content. Three of her works have won the annual APRA SOUNZ Contemporary Award for most outstanding contemporary classical work.

In 1999 Whitehead was created a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her services to music, and in 2000 she was honoured by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand as one of five inaugural Arts Laureates, awarded for artistic achievement. She was composer-inresidence with the Auckland Philharmonia during 2000 and 2001, and in 2003 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Victoria University of Wellington.

She writes of Taurangi: ‘I began writing this piece in the shadows of both the East Timor crisis and the death of my good friend and mentor of many years, the musicologist and historian John Mansfield Thomson. These events modified both the original formal ideas and the detail of the piece. Williams’ A Dictionary of the Maori Language gives four meanings for Taurangi: “unsettled, changing or changeable”; “incomplete, unsatisfied, unfulfilled”; “to grieve for”; and “wanderer”.

Taurangi was commissioned by the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, during which it received its first performance in March 2000 by Bridget Douglas and Rachel Thomson. The piece is dedicated to the memory of John Mansfield Thomson.

Christopher Blake (b.1949)

Little Dancings (1991)

Christopher Blake was born in Christchurch. He studied music and engineering at Canterbury University and has a postgraduate degree in composition from the University of Southampton, England. He has been general manager of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, manager of Radio New Zealand’s Concert FM, and foundation chief executive of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. He is currently Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs.

His major works include Till Human Voices Wake Us (1986) for orchestra and tenor soloist; a piano concerto, The Coming of Tane Mahuta (1987); the Clairmont Triptych (1988) for piano and wind quintet, which was New Zealand’s entry in the 1989 UNESCO Rostrum of Composers in Paris; Bitter Calm, an opera in two Acts which premiered at the 1994 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts; a Symphony, The Islands (1996); Angel at Ahipara (2000) and Night Journey to Pawarenga (2004) for string orchestra; and Concerto Aoraki (2001).

Little Dancings was conceived as simple, straightforward music inspired by dance and the rhythmic excitement and propulsion of physical movement. The work comprises five movements: three larger movements each separated by a brief interlude or intermezzo.

The five movements are interrelated and employ similar material which is treated in varied ways to integrate the larger work into a unified entity.

The opening movement is entitled ‘Two and Three Dance’ – a reference to its oscillation between duple and triple rhythms. It also contains elements of the fast and frantic traditional dance known as the tarantella. This is followed by ‘Interlude I’ – a short elegant dance. The middle movement is a ‘Mystic Dance’, characterised by free rhythms which gradually take on a measured shape. The flute employs quarter tones and flutter tonguing and the piano adds pedalled sonorities. This is followed by ‘Interlude II’, which is based on a Thai drum dance. The final movement, ‘Perpetual’, has elements of a dissonant moto perpetuo broken by excursions into slower tempi which feature more consonant harmony.

Little Dancings was commissioned by flautist Alexa Still and premiered in 1991 on a tour for the Music Federation of New Zealand by Alexa Still and pianist Rae de Lisle.

2

Maria Grenfell (b.1969)

Four Pooh Stories (1992)

Maria Grenfell was born in Malaysia, and completed composition studies in Christchurch, New Zealand; the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York; and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she was also a lecturer.

Maria Grenfell’s work takes much of its influence from poetic, literary and visual sources and from non-Western music and literature. Her works have been performed by musicians in New Zealand, Australia, the USA and Europe, who include the Vienna Piano Trio, the Stellar Collective, Antipoduo (the Netherlands), the New Zealand Trio, and the Australia Ensemble. Her music has been commissioned or performed by all the Symphony Australia orchestras, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Wellington Sinfonia and the Christchurch Symphony.

Maria Grenfell’s music is broadcast regularly in Australia and New Zealand, and her works have been recorded for commercial release by Kiwi-Pacific Records and Trust Records. She lives in Hobart, Australia, with her husband, the guitarist David Malone, and their son Alexander.

Four Pooh Stories is a set of pieces for solo flute based on the stories of A.A. Milne in Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. It was written for flautist Julia Grenfell, the composer’s sister, and won first prize in the 1992 KBB/New Zealand Flute Society Composition Competition. In 2001 the work was selected for the recommended repertoire list of the US National Flute Association.

1. “In which Christopher Robin Leads an Expotition to the North Pole.” – Introducing Pooh and his friends Piglet, Kanga and Roo, Owl and Eeyore.

2. “In which Tigger Comes to the Forest and has Breakfast.” – Pooh is awakened one night by an odd noise being made by a Strange Animal.

3. “In which Pooh and Piglet go Hunting and Nearly Catch A Woozle.” – Pooh and Piglet track a Woozle round a small spinney of larch trees in the Forest.

4. “In which a House is Built at Pooh Corner.” – Pooh sings a very Good Hum while his friends build a house for Eeyore.

Anthony Ritchie (b.1960)

Tui (2005)

Anthony Ritchie was born and educated in Christchurch. He completed a PhD on the music of Bartók while studying composition at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. In 1988-89 he was Mozart Fellow at the University of Otago. His work The Hanging Bulb was written at this time, and this was later recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Ritchie was composer-in-residence with the Dunedin Sinfonia in 1993-94, during which time he produced his Symphony No.1, Boum, concertos for flute and viola, and Remember Parihaka. From 1995-2002 he worked as a freelance composer, writing prolifically. A second symphony, three mini-operas, many songs and chamber works are amongst his output during this time. He has composed works for special occasions, and his Southern Journeys (to a film by Natural History New Zealand) has played at the Otago Museum since 2002.

Ritchie currently lectures in composition at the University of Otago. His operas Quartet and The God Boy have had success at recent festivals, and in 2005 a commercial recording of his 24 Preludes for piano was released by Atoll Records.

Tui was commissioned by Bridget Douglas and composed as part of the composer’s university research. It is based on two bird-calls made by the native New Zealand tui, which were recorded in the Dunedin Botanical Gardens in 2003 by the zoology student Vicki Payne. She requested Ritchie’s assistance in the transcribing the recordings as part of her study. The mercurial and highly varied tui calls provided Ritchie with inspiration for this flute piece, which also integrates some of the bird’s own peculiar sound effects. Tui unfolds slowly at the start, with silences surrounding ‘jerky’ gestures.

The second section, more flowing in style, builds up to a faster tempo and the music climaxes on a high A that fluctuates in pitch. The tui is frightened by something and disappears, with fragments of its call, now in harmonics, sounding distantly.

This piece is dedicated to Bridget Douglas and her wonderful playing.

Dorothy Buchanan (b.1945)

Flute Song for the Birds (1990)

Dorothy Buchanan was born in Christchurch and graduated from the University of Canterbury in 1967 with a MusB (Hons) in composition. Over the next decade she worked as a freelance composer, pianist, violinist and teacher.

In 1976 she was appointed New Zealand’s first composer-in-schools and in 1979 she became both president of the Composers’ Association of New Zealand and the first woman to join the Musicians’ Union.

Many of her works are vocal settings of texts by New Zealand poets. She has collaborated with New Zealand writers to produce major works, which include The Clio Legacy (Witi Ihimaera) and The Woman at the Store, based on a short story of Katherine Mansfield (to a libretto by Jeremy Commons).

Awards include a CANZ Outstanding Achievement Award, the Vernon Griffiths Memorial Award for Outstanding Musical Leadership and a Suffrage Medal. In 2001 she was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for a lifetime’s involvement in music.

The composer writes: ‘I composed this piece at the home of my parents-in-law at Lowry Bay, near Eastbourne, Wellington, and dedicated the piece to Nan Carroll, who passed away in 2005 just before her 90th birthday. Lowry Bay abounds in birdsong. Set in the bush, Nan and Ted’s home was a haven for birds, both native and introduced. The bush drips in the rain, and those dripping elements may be heard in the music. The work turns and revolves upon itself, as if the bush walker is suspended in wonder and meditation amongst the ferns, puriri, beech, totara, ngaio, pohutukawa, the foliage – and the birds.’

Flute Song for the Birds was commissioned by Richard Giese, former principal flute of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, who gave the premiere of the work at the New Zealand Flute Convention, Christchurch, in 1990.

Philip Brownlee (b.1971)

Harakeke (1999)

Philip Brownlee is a composer and sonic artist based in Wellington, New Zealand. He composes for both instrumental and ‘acousmatic’ media, and many recent works are concerned with the application of sonically directed electroacoustic techniques to instrumental materials. He is also researching this area of music as part of a Doctoral degree at Victoria University of Wellington. His work with the Wellington group Amalgam has extended these explorations into cross-disciplinary theatrical collaborations, and incorporated elements of free improvisation. He was a finalist for the 2001 SOUNZ Contemporary Award for his work Sinew/Synapse for solo cello, and has worked with many of New Zealand’s leading contemporary music performers, including Stroma, 175 East, Bridget Douglas, Richard Nunns, and Robert Ibell.

Harakeke, the flax plant – with a cluster of related images – stands behind this piece.

While not directly pictorial, the music embodies flickering, swaying movement and a fascination with dry, rustling sounds. These sounds and movements are not selfsustaining, but are set in motion by disturbances in the air and the action of human breath. These activating forces recall echoes of the environments in which the plant grows.

The piece is concerned with the relationship between the flute as an acoustical system and the human gestures by which its sounds are produced. Different, and sometimes conflicting, performance gestures are superimposed, or placed in quick succession, encouraging the instrument into areas of unstable behaviour. The composer is deeply grateful to Bridget Douglas for her close collaboration in the making of the piece.

Harakeke was commissioned by Bridget Douglas (with funding support from Creative New Zealand).

John Ritchie (b.1921)

Sweet and Sour (1984)

The two pieces were composed in 1984 for a gifted music student, Pamela Keightley, who was then working part-time as a waitress in a local restaurant. She was to play them for guests when other duties permitted, in the manner of a continental violinist ‘working the tables’.

The first, sweet and coaxing, is intended to persuade. Its somewhat circular structure emerges from gentle variants of the opening two measures in six-eight time and the ensuing falling triplets. The second, giocoso, carries its own irritating condiments – in the form of an uneasy quintuple rhythm – throughout its loosely ternary design to an explosive ending.

Chris Cree Brown (b.1953)

The Watertable (2002)

Chris Cree Brown is a lecturer at the School of Music, University of Canterbury. His main interests include conventional instrumental composition and electro-acoustic and inter-media art. Recent exhibitions include The Dinner exhibited in the Physics Room in collaboration with Fiona Gunn, and his recent compositions include Memories Apart (commissioned by 175 East), Forgotten Memories for viola and orchestra (commissioned by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) Icescape for orchestra, and the electro-acoustic work Under Erebus, the latter two as a result of a trip to Antarctica with the ‘Artists to Antarctica’ programme run under the auspices of Antarctica New Zealand.

Both Memories Apart (2002) and Icescape (2003) were finalist compositions in the SOUNZ Contemporary Music Awards. The composer has a strong interest in aeolian harps and in 2002 exhibited a design in the Christchurch Botanical gardens as part of the Art and Industry Scape Biennale.

The Watertable attempts to explore some of the wonderful timbres that can be produced by the alto and bass flutes. The tape part provides a setting for the flutes and at times, acts as a foil to the live flute.

The work was written for Bridget Douglas and was commissioned by the New Zealand Flute Society (with funding support from Creative New Zealand) for the Flute convention in July 2002.

John Elmsly (b.1952)

Three Doubles (1995)

Originally movements within a six movement Partita for solo flute commissioned and premiered by Ingrid Culliford in 1995, these three pieces were chosen for publication

by SOUNZ in the volume Little Dancings (1998), a selection of flute music by New Zealand composers. Doubles can be duplicates, shadows, multiples, pairings: ‘Tongue and Groove’ pairs fast tongue noises (‘tk-tk’) with a legato rhythmic ‘groove’; ‘Light and Shade’ explores some of the magical shadow sounds produced by successively ‘shading’ normal fingerings with extra fingers to make sequences of tiny pitch and tone variations, and ‘Air with Graces’ creates a double line by foreshadowing a melody with parallel grace notes at varying intervals, beginning and ending with consonant perfect fifths.

Paul Booth (b.1967)

Lament (1997)

Paul Booth studied composition at the University of Auckland under John Elmsly, John Rimmer and Eve de Castro-Robinson, graduating Master of Music in 1996. He developed an interest in contemporary music whilst studying trombone performance and is still an avid performer, composer and promoter of music for the instrument. Booth has worked in many fields of composition including music for solo instrument, mixed chamber groups, orchestra, and electronic media, as well as incidental music for theatre, dance, television and short film. His interest in the theatre led to the production of Freud’s Dora, an electronic chamber opera.

Booth has received many awards including the Fowlds Memorial Prize, the Annual Music Prize from the University of Auckland, and the University of Auckland Composition Prize. He represented New Zealand at the 18th conference and festival of the Asian Composers’ League in the Philippines. In 1998 he was the Mozart Fellow at the University of Otago. Booth was commissioned to write Impossible Colour for Stroma, and more recently three waiata for Mere Boynton for her debut album Waikohu (Trust Records MMT2034).

Lament for solo flute was judged the winner of the composers’ competition held by the fourth New Zealand National Flute Conference and was later chosen to be included in the SOUNZ publication Little Dancings. In the true sense of the title the piece is an outcry of grief and sorrow, but there is no sense of regret here. The proclamatory style is suggestive of a determination to stand and fight rather than to mourn. The piece is a direct response to the devastating virus HIV, and is dedicated to all those brave souls who are no longer with us.

Douglas Mews snr (1918-1993)

Tango Fantastique

Douglas Mews was born at St Johns in Newfoundland and died in New Zealand. He studied in London, England, from 1936, graduating BMus in 1939. Following the Second World War he became a professor and examiner at Trinity College of Music (1946-63) and a lecturer at Colchester Technical College (1963-8). In 1961 he graduated DMus from London. Mews emigrated to Auckland in 1969, joining the staff of the Music Department at the University of Auckland where, in 1974, he was appointed associate professor of Music. He was director of music at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland from 1970-82. He retired from the University of Auckland in 1984. In 1990 Mews received a Papal Knighthood.

Douglas Mews frequently wrote lighthearted music of a highly idiosyncratic nature.

Tango Fantastique, written in 1985 at the request of Alexa Still, is one such piece. As the title suggests, the piece contains elements of the tango, a traditional South American song and dance. The recurring tango tune is interwoven with many decorative flourishes that make the work highly virtuosic.

Bridget Douglas Bridget Douglas is Principal Flute of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Artist-Teacher of Flute at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. After completing a BMus at Victoria University where she studied with Alexa Still, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, a P.E.O. International Peace Award, a Creative New Zealand grant and other awards to study at the State University of New York at Stony Brook with Samuel Baron, where she completed her MMus in 1996. She was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago during their 1996-97 season. Whilst in the USA, Bridget won several competitions including the Artists International Award, resulting in her debut recital at Carnegie Hall in 1997. Bridget performs regularly with leading New Zealand musicians in solo and chamber music concerts. She plays with harpist Carolyn Mills in the duo Flight. Bridget is actively involved in the performance of new music and is a co-founder of the contemporary music ensemble Stroma.

Rachel Thomson Rachel Thomson was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and grew up in Wellington where she began her piano studies with her mother. She went on to study with Judith Clark, graduating from Victoria University of Wellington with a BMus (Hons) in 1991, and a BA in English Literature in 1993. With assistance from Fulbright and the QEII Arts Council she continued her studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music in the United States, where she gained a doctorate in piano performance. She has won various awards and competitions at home and in the USA, including the New Zealand National Concerto Competition (1993) and the MTNA Collegiate Piano Competition (East Central Division USA, 1997). Since her return to New Zealand in 1997, Rachel has performed with some of the country’s leading musicians. She has toured for Chamber Music New Zealand and is a national recording artist for New Zealand’s Concert FM. She is a member of the chamber ensemble Ethos and is a tutor at the Victoria Academy, as well as occasionally working as a pianist for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

John Reynolds (b.1956), Sun, Tree, Beginning (1993) acrylic, wax crayon and oil stick on board Courtesy of the Chartwell Collection

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, John Reynolds graduated from the Auckland University School of Fine Arts in 1978. He won the Montana Lindauer Award in 1988, received a Visual Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of New Zealand in 1993 and won the Visa Gold Art Award in 1994. He has been involved in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Distance Looks Our Way, which toured Spain and the Netherlands in 1993, and A Very Peculiar Practice, at the City Art Gallery, Wellington, in 1995. Reynolds’ painting continues to be drawing-based, using the material of paint in a highly expressive manner that moves between sensuality and austerity. He has made three suites of prints, notably Millenium, an epic, one-off lithograph made in 66 sections, which was exhibited in 1996 at the McDougall Art Annex, Christchurch.

taurangi Bridget Douglas and Rachel Thomson

MMT2063-64 © 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust p 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust Recorded in the Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall, Wellington, New Zealand, 29 November to 1 December 2004 Producer and Editor Roger Smith Recording Engineer and Digital Mastering Keith Warren Executive Producers Ross Hendy and Stuart Coats Design Cato Partners 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 PO Box 1395 Wellington, New Zealand info@trustcds.com www.trustcds.com The HRL Morrison Music Trust gratefully acknowledges the support of the following people and organisations in the making of this recording: Robyn Hill, Natasa Kruscic, The University of Auckland Art Collection, Creative NZ, John Reynolds, The Chartwell Collection, Radio NZ, SOUNDZ, Chris Jarman and all of the composers.

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.

MMT2063-64

2

1

66:11

56:29 1-4. Four Pooh Stories

Maria Grenfell

1. Ka wawara te hau…

Ross Harris

10:47

2. Dialogue 1

John Elmsly

11:07

3.

4.

(i) ChristopherRobin leads an Expotition to the North Pole

(ii) Tigger comes to the Forest and BADB 6:44 has Breakfast Michael Norris

(iii) Pooh and Piglet go Hunting and nearly catch a Woozle The Snow Goose 5:05

(iv) A House is built at Pooh Corner John Ritchie

5. Tui

Anthony Ritchie

5. Taurangi

Gillian Whitehead

13:14

6-10. Little Dancings

Christopher Blake (i) Two and Three Dance

(ii) First Interlude

(iii) Mystic Dance

19:11

(iv) Second Interlude (Thai Drum Dance) (v) Perpetual

MMT2063-64 Digital Stereo Recording © 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust p 2005 HRL Morrison Music Trust

6:15 1:13 6:25 1:08 4:08

10:09 3:22 2:26 2:15 2:04

4:05

6. Flute Song for the Birds

Dorothy Buchanan

7:05

7. Harakeke

Philip Brownlee

8:16

8-9. Sweet and Sour

John Ritchie (i)

(ii)

4:11

10. The Watertable

Chris Cree Brown

8:31

11-13 Three Doubles

John Elmsly (i) Tongue and Groove

(ii) Light and Shade

(iii) Air with Graces

7:20

14. Lament

Paul Booth

3:37

15. Tango Fantastique

Douglas Mews snr

3:11

2:45 1:25

2:22 2:42 2:14