Happy new year and welcome to the first Dawn Chorus for 2019. We don't usually send a newsletter out in January, but we had a fair bit of news to share with you (and some fun photos). We hope you're all having a good summer so far - if you're after something to do check out the events below.
|
Staff holiday snaps We asked some of our staff to share what they'd been up to over the holidays. We particularly like the one of Director Sally Jane Norman, although we can't say it looks like that much of a holiday... |
'Kiwi re-integration' - Sally Jane Norman, Director |
'Christmas day fishing in Australia' - Adele Chan, School Manager |
'Relaxing on Lake Te Anau after walking the Routeburn Track' - Gillian Ansell, AProf, viola |
'View of Auckland City from the shore of Rangitoto Island' - Dave Wilson, Lecturer in Music Studies |
'Daphne’s ‘office’ in Rarotonga… Reading student exegeses by the pool' - Daphne Rickson, Senior Lecturer, Music Therapy |
'Caroling with the family on Christmas evening (little one is supposed to be sleeping!)' - Belinda Behle, School Administrator |
Cory Champion creates ‘a field of cymbals’ at Toi Pōneke Gallery
The 2018/19 Toi Pōneke – NZSM Sound Artist in Residence is Cory Champion, whose exhibition Time/Tone is currently on now at Toi Pōneke Gallery. Drums and cymbals are amplified and placed in particular gallery locations, with the invitation to be played. When they are struck, the action both emits a sound and kicks off a compositional chain reaction, randomly modulating the immersive, harmonic and hypnotic soundscape experienced in the space. Read more about his exhibition and related events here.
Exhibition: 11 January – 2 February 2019
Live performance: 5.30pm Thursday 31 January 2019
Artist talk: 1pm Friday 1 February 2019
New book by Margaret Medlyn
Routledge has recently published Embodying Voice: Singing Verdi, Singing Wagner by Margaret Medlyn.
Embodying Voice: Singing Verdi, Singing Wagner articulates the process of developing an operatic voice, explaining how and why the training of such a voice is as complex and sophisticated as it is mysterious. This book illustrates how putting together a voice, embodying a sound, and creating a character are vital to an audience’s emotional involvement and enjoyment. Moreover, it addresses an imbalance of power between the opera director and the orchestra conductor – ultimately, it is the communicative power of the singer’s voice that brings life to an opera, a fact well known by Verdi and Wagner.
Embodying Voice: Singing Verdi, Singing Wagner is available to order online here.
Lucien Johnson off to New York with Harriet Friedlander Residency
The residency, announced in December, will see DMA graduate Lucien and his partner, choreographer Lucy Marinkovich, head to New York for as long as $100,000 lasts them. The pair are joint recipients of the residency, which was set up by Harriet Friedlander and is supported by the Arts Foundation. Read more...
Staff promotions
Congratulations to our three staff members who have been promoted in the latest academic promotions round - Samantha Owens has been made Professor, and Inge van Rij and Michael Norris are both now Associate Professors.
Recovering Christoph Graupner
After 200 years of being out of sight, the music of German composer Christoph Graupner is being rediscovered with the help of NZSM Professor Donald Maurice, whose film project Christoph Graupner - viola d’amore and more was released in November. The film was shot in June on location at the 13th-century Owinska Monastery in Poland with Orkiestra Ars Longa of Poznan. Read more...
Student successes
NZSM graduate Luka Venter won the 2018 New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Todd Corporation Young Composer Award for his work Primeval Light.
The Deane Music Scholarship has been awarded to Tomairangi Henare and the Deane Music Scholarship in honour of Jonathan Lemalu was awarded to LJ Crichton.
Enrolments due
With enrolments due by 20 January, you've still got a few days to think about taking one of our courses in 2019. Have a look here for a list of courses which require no music theory background or audition. Perhaps you fancy learning about recording, production and sound engineering, trying your hand at gamelan, or learning about film music?
Events
Live performance - Cory Champion
Time/Tone
5:30pm Thursday 31 January
Toi Pōneke Gallery
All welcome
Toi Pōneke – NZSM Sound Artist in Residence Cory Champion will perform a series of improvisations with guests, utilising the augmented percussion in his gallery installation.
Artist talk -
Cory Champion
Time/Tone
1pm, Friday 1 February
Toi Pōneke Gallery
All welcome
Cory Champion will be discussing his exhibition Time/Tone, improvisation with augmented instruments, sharing some of the technical processes used to create the installation as well as talking about his residency at Toi Pōneke.
A Tree Falls
10am-6pm 2-3 February
Adam Concert Room
'A Tree Falls' is a work by MFA student Jack Woodbury, which explores audience proximity through a multichannel interactive audio installation. Here's a teaser: https://vimeo.com/311026155
All welcome.
Pasquale Orchard
3pm Monday 11 February &
12pm Wednesday 13 February
Adam Concert Room
Master of Musical Arts (performance) student Pasquale Orchard presents two recitals as part of her final Masters assessment. Pasquale (soprano) was a prize winner in the IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition last year, and is a Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist for New Zealand Opera’s 2019 season.
PORTALFEST 2019
NZSM composition graduate Reuben Jelleyman is organising this festival, which involves a number of NZSM students and graduates. The festival presents a fresh programme of international and local artists' new-music projects ’outside the concert hall’ over two weekends 25-26 Jan and 01-02 Feb in Wellington, and looks to be a stimulating summer music fix.
We're particularly looking forward to MMA composition student Elliot Vaughan’s absurd, mournful Fish in Pink Gelatine at Adam Art Gallery. More details...
Support the musicians, composers and scholars of the future
For some of New Zealand's most talented musicians, the only thing that stands in the way of their dreams is the lack of funds to make them real. For further information on how you can provide support for students at the New Zealand School of Music, please contact either:
Rosalene Fogel
Development Manager
Victoria University of Wellington Foundation
Ph: 0800 VIC LEGACY (0800 842 534)
Email: rosalene.fogel@vuw.ac.nz
www.victoria.ac.nz/foundation
