Resonance Ensemble -Music for Matariki

Music for Matariki

In 2024 Resonance Ensemble celebrated the Māori New Year with a concert of music by New Zealand composers. It was a very successful venture for both audience and players, so the orchestra and its conductor Tony Ryan will present another programme of New Zealand music at The Piano, 3pm, 15 June, the Sunday before this year’s Matariki holiday.
The first part of this concert will feature John Ritchie’s colourful and descriptive Papanui Road Overture, written in 1987 a few years after the composer had moved to live near this busy Christchurch street.
Besides being one of Christchurch’s most well-known composers, John Ritchie founded a string orchestra which eventually became what is now the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. On his ninetieth birthday in 2011, the CSO marked the occasion with a special concert which included some of Ritchie’s own music as well as a work specially written for the occasion by his son Anthony. Resonance Ensemble’s 2025 programme includes Anthony Ritchie’s evocative 1996 composition Albatross in Flight.
John Ritchie’s 90th birthday concert fourteen years ago, opened with another specially commissioned piece by another former student of John Ritchie, our conductor, Tony Ryan, whose Fanfare for John opens this year’s Matariki programme.
The main work in this year’s concert is also by Tony Ryan. His Saxophone Concerto will be played by Sydney-based saxophonist Alice Morgan. The solo part is for soprano saxophone rather than the more familiar alto or tenor, and the concerto is as much a spectacular orchestral showpiece as an opportunity for the soloist to demonstrate her virtuosity. Originally from Christchurch, Alice has a thriving career in Sydney and will perform as Guest Principal Saxophone with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in their 2025 season, including as orchestral soloist for Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. See more here: https://www.alicemorgan.com.au... . Resonance is looking forward to working with this outstanding soloist.
Music by Claire Cowan and Pieta Hextall completes this year’s line-up of New Zealand composers. Claire Cowan’s The Stolen Stars of Matariki was originally written for the NZSO to accompany a story by Miriama Kamo. Resonance Ensemble has invited Leah Williams-Partington of Loopy Tunes fame, to narrate the story, making this concert highly suitable for young people as well as our regular audience.
Pieta Hextall’s quirky and mischievous take on music for a wedding makes her Wedding Mixtape a fun and a light-hearted contribution to this unique and celebratory concert.