Celebrating Matariki – A Cluster of New Zealand Composers

Resonance Ensemble celebrates Matariki on 30 June with music by a ‘cluster’ of New Zealand composers. But don’t be daunted! As always, Resonance Ensemble has come up with an exceptionally innovative, exciting and appealing programme ranging from Douglas Lilburn’s iconic Aotearoa Overture written in 1940, to music written as recently as 2020.

The concert opens with Lilburn’s overture, a work of enduring appeal and probably the most often performed and recorded piece by any New Zealand composer. Pieta Hextall’s enigmatic and atmospheric Portrait from 2009 introduces the programme’s youngest composer with music of ethereal mystery and quirky rhythmic ambiguity, while Patrick Shepherd’s Waiting for Hercules, with its novel instrumental effects, brilliantly conveys a sense of excitement and expectation as the composer recaptures his experience of travelling to Antarctica on an Airforce Hercules.

Tony Ryan’s Omi-Kin-Kan is a short song cycle setting poems by Ursula Bethell and originally written when the composer was just twenty-one. He has now orchestrated it especially for this concert where it will be sung by Helen Charlton who has previously performed and recorded the original version with piano. Then, Maria Grenfell’s exceptionally beautiful River Mountain Sky, commissioned for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, paints an awe-inspiring picture of the Tasmanian landscape where the composer now lives.

The Juggler is possibly Christchurch composer Philip Norman’s most-played orchestral work. Originally performed on tour by the NZSO conducted by Ron Goodwin, and sometimes featuring an actual juggler, this colourful and toe-tapping piece was inspired by a street performer whose antics mesmerised the composer during a visit to Sydney. Dance rhythms are also a feature of Chris Adams’ Symphonic Dances in a strikingly varied piece that takes its inspiration from images of medieval and Renaissance country dances.

Coming from Auckland, Mark Hobson joins the orchestra as the soloist in the final movement of Tony Ryan’s spectacular and colourful Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Orchestra. Mark premiered the original version of the concerto in 1994, which the composer has now revised especially for this performance with Resonance Ensemble.

Then, to end the concert we return to Pieta Hextall’s wonderfully evocative miniature sketches of Tane-Mahuta and Tangaroa

which she wrote for the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra’s collaborative commission He Ngākau Aroha in 2020. This leads into a traditional waiata, Tarakihi, arranged by Tony Ryan, and featuring all the soloists and performers of this uniquely imaginative and innovative Resonance Ensemble programme.

Programme notes by conductor, Tony Ryan