New Zealand in Antarctica

noreply@blogspirit.com (Paul MacAlindin) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:25:00 +0200

ANOTHER COMPOSER IN ANTARCTICA

What do you get if you cross a penguin with a drag queen?

Answer: A world premiere from the New Zealand Artists in Antarctica Scheme.

Nations across the world have found the perfect solution to the surplus of composers. Sweden, UK and Canada are already joining New Zealand in extraditing composers to the frozen north or south, and those that survive, have to come back and write a piece of music. Of course, when you send a drag queen like Lilith la Croix, aka New Zealand Composer Gareth Farr (pictured above), there’s no question of her NOT surviving. “First I was afraid, I was petrified....I will survive, I will not lay down and Die”, we have all learned from Gloria Gaynor.

"Terra Incognita" is Gareth’s response to 2 weeks in the Scott base in Antarctica. This 25 minute work is a symphonic cantata involving Paul Horan on text, Paul Whelan as solo bass-baritone, the Orpheus Choir directed by Michael Fulcher, a new video installation by Mike Newman and myself with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, one of the best orchestras in the southern hemisphere.

Paul Horan drew on many sources, including Scott’s own diary and Paul Whelan’s desire to sing about the Larson B ice shelf, which he and I had both read about in Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth”. The full text can be found under the blog entry – Terra Incognita.

How does one write music about the Antarctic, where there is pure silence? Even one’s own sounds are absorbed by the snow. Gareth rose to this challenge by forming a journey of the spirit, as Captain Scott travels out from New Zealand to a journey of challenge and eventually despair, drawing on his own language through Gamelan , rock and romantic influences.

You can find out more about Artists to Antarctica here:

http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/research/1025

Other Artists to Antarctica can be found at:

http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issue117/southbound.htm

http://www.nzartmonthly.co.nz/trezise_006.html

And Gareth Farr:

www.garethfarr.com

www.drumdrag.com

Orpheus choir:

http://www.orpheuschoir.org.nz/About.html

Paul Whelan:

http://www.paulwhelan.co.uk/

Terra Incognita:

http://www.promethean-editions.co.nz/php/WorkDetail.php?WorkID=332&Composer=Gareth%20Farr&ComposerID=1

Suite from Vaughan Williams’ “Scott in the Antarctic”

The NZSO requested that I put together an opener for the concert, based on the film music from Vaughan Williams’s firm “Scott of the Antarctic”. Only the manuscript for the entire music exists in the British library, but Chandos Music had published it as score and parts for the BBC Philharmonic CD of Vaughan Williams’ film music, so I was able, with the CD and kind permission from the Vaughan Williams Trust, to put my own suite together.

The suite is 11 minutes long, and makes a great concert opener for Youth, Amateur and professional orchestras alike, particularly if there’s a choir & orchestra piece programmed.

Scoring is 2+1,2+1,2+1,2+1:4,3,3,1: 2 perc (inc. wind machine), timp, cel, pno, hp, (opt.org) str. Choir (SSAA)

1. Climbing the Glacier

2. Aurora

3. Doom

4. Blizzard

5. Penguin Dance

6. Scott on the Glacier

During the performance, images of Sir Edmund Hillary, who had died a few months before, were projected in tribute to this great New Zealander.

For more enquiries about this suite, contact Chandos Music:

http://www.mpaonline.org.uk/About/members/Chandos_Music_Ltd.html

for the BBC Phil CD:

http://www.amazon.com/Film-Music-Vaughan-Williams-1/dp/B00006JK96/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1213533956&sr=8-3

The Concert on 18^th April, 2008

Another musical highlight, hot on the heels of my Carnegie Hall debut. What began as a cold call to the NZSO turned into one of the most innovative concerts I’ve ever conducted.

The genius of the NZSO team, led by Rachel Hyde, Manager of Artistic Planning, put together:

A world premiere by New Zealand composer Gareth Farr, with Paul Whelan as bass-baritone
A new suite of Vaughan Williams’ film music
An NZ premiere of Maxwell Davies Antarctic Symphony
Video art for the Farr and Maxwell Davies by Mike Newman
An education program for schools
A week-long festival reviewing the years of artistic output from New Zealand Artists in Antarctica
A live video conference between Peter Walls, CEO of the NZSO and the New Zealand scientists at Scott base, directly after the Vaughan Williams, in which the scientists, who were receiving the whole concert live from a sold-out Wellington Town hall, performed their own “live” cardboard cut-out orchestra version of Beethoven 5, to everyone’s great hilarity.
A fundraiser to help restore and maintain the Scott base
A broadcast from New Zealand Radio

This is what orchestral music can be; meaningful to the whole community, high tech with traditional, challenging, connecting the past with the present, connecting people outside the concert hall in remote communities with communal music making.

Explore the NZSO Antarctic spectacular at:

http://www.nzso.co.nz/the_concerts/special_concerts/antarctic

Here are the full reviews below:

http://www.salient.org.nz/arts/music/classical-music-2

http://www.captimes.co.nz/rev/27/n/1786/Icecold.boss

From the bay in Wellington

21st Century Conductor

New Zealand in Antarctica