Kia ora koutou, and welcome to a fairly chilly start to Spring! We well and truly took advantage of moving to Level 1 last week, with at least nine events taking place across the week that NZSM staff and students were connected with. Our Trimester 2 wraps up on 16 October, so we have just three lunchtime concerts left before the end of the year. This Friday a special concert of two halves will highlight traditional music practice from Indonesia and China. There are plenty of other events coming up too, we hope you can join us!

Events

The Collaborative Pianist: Outer Worlds for Inner Thought

When: Thursday 1 October, 6pm
Where: Hunter Council Chamber

The Collaborative Pianist Series showcases duo and sonata works for Wind, Brass, Strings, Percussion and Piano Duet in an exciting series of concerts. For this concert, David Barnard will be joined by Inbal Megiddo, Gillian Ansell and Monique Lapins. More

Composers' Competition

When: Saturday 10 October, 7pm
Where: Adam Concert Room

​The annual Lilburn Trust NZSM Composers' Competition is a highlight of the calendar, in which works composed by NZSM students are performed in a concert to an audience and jury. This year's finalists are Simon Eastwood, Liam Furey, Dan Adams, Sonya Ishimnikova, Micah Thompson, Nathan Carter, Fergus Fry, Jeremy McLean, Robyn Bryant, Jacob Barrett, Nikau Wi Neera and Russell Henderson. More

Community Gamelan Concert

When: Wednesday 14 October, 7pm
Where: Adam Concert Room

​Our gamelan community, both NZSM and Wellington ensembles, are featured in this evening of gamelan in the Adam Concert Room. This concert will act as the final assessment for our PERF250 students and will conclude with the awarding of the annual Gamelan Prize. More

Emma Pearson Masterclass

When: Thursday 8 October, 6:30pm
Where: Hunter Council Chamber

In association with the NZSO, we present a masterclass with soprano Emma Pearson, ahead of her performance with the NZSO singing the Vier letzte lieder (Four Last Songs) by R. Strauss. All welcome! 

Friday Lunchtime Concerts

From the NZSM collection

Our featured instrument this month is the Bühner & Keller natural horn, c. 1800. It was purchased c. 1987 from Edward White, French horn player with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

This natural horn was made in the workshop of Strasbourg-based wind instrument manufacturers Gabriel Sébastian Bühner (1753–1816), Isaac Keller (c. 1739–1802) and his nephew Jean Keller (1776–1833). Established in 1794, their firm Bühner & Keller was a highly successful business that produced all manner of woodwind and brass instruments, including flutes, oboes, clarinets, basset horns, bassoons, horns and trumpets. The outside rim of the bell is stamped ‘BUHNER & KELLER A STRASBOURG’ and the instrument remains in what appears to be its original case, complete with a set of nine crooks, which enable the horn to be played in a range of different keys. This was a necessity when performing as part of an orchestra, since prior to the introduction of valves to brass instruments in the early nineteenth century, natural horn players were restricted to the limited number of notes in the harmonic series. These were produced by modulating the tension of their lips, with individual pitches also able to be lowered by applying the technique of hand-stopping. Despite this innovation, some nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers—most notably Johannes Brahms— much preferred, and continued to write for, the natural horn.
- Samantha Owens, New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī

News

Supporting Joe Haddow

We were very saddened to hear that NZSM classical voice alumnus and Lexus Song Quest finalist Joe Haddow was recently rushed to hospital with a brain tumour. Margaret Medlyn has set up a Give a Little page for Joe and his wife. 

Joe has always won people's hearts with his wonderful voice, characterful singing and quirky personality. He worked hard at his singing at the New Zealand School of Music at VUW and gives many people much pleasure from the communication he engages in with his audience. 

It was a shock to all of us to learn two weeks ago that he had been rushed to hospital where the doctors have found a tumour in his brainstem. He has already had brain surgery to relieve the pressure for his brain but is unable to do any work as he is very tired physically and emotionally.

Alex his wife needs to be with him to keep an eye on his health and his drugs, so she is unable to work either. They are awaiting another conference with the medical team to arrange the way forward with treatment.

- Margaret Medlyn

Our hearts go out to Joe and his wife Alex at this terrible news. If you would like to contribute to the Give a Little page to help support them with living expenses at this difficult time, please do here https://bit.ly/36seumn 

Body Harris Prize winners

The joint winners of the Body/Harris Prize this year were Isabella Gregory, accompanied by David Barnard, performing Michael Norris’ Badb, and Nicholas Baucke-Maunsell, George MacLaurin, Seth Boy and Lennox Grootjans performing Nicholas’ tune Ballad for Ben. Isabella and Nicholas are pictured above with adjudicators Ewan Clark, Callum Allardice and Debbie Rawson. 

NZSM workshops with Miguel Harth-Bedoya

Recently NZSM students were treated to workshops with world class conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, as part of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's education outreach activities. Harth-Bedoya led three of our advanced conducting students—David Codd, Sarang Roberts and Reuben Brown—in a special conducting workshop, and conducted the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra in a rehearsal of Brahms Symphony No. 2 (pictured above).

NZSM Alumni Karlo Margetic wins international composition competition

NZSM alumnus Karlo Margetić has won the 2020 Enescu Competition’s Composition Section in the Symphonic Music category, with his work An Axe for the Frozen Sea. The award comes with a prize of €10,000, and was judged by a panel of international judges, headed by Zygmunt Krauze. More info

NZSM composers collaborate with focus on Latin America

NZSM composition student Jacob Barrett and alumnus Jose Jugo were recently involved in the LatAm CAPE Musicality Programme 2020, which saw them take part in a weekend composer lab, with composers zooming in from Colombia and Argentina. They were mentored by NZSM's Michael Norris and doctoral student Chris Ramos Flores, and the weekend included sessions covering language, culture and history of music. Their 'collective' composition is due to be performed as part of the Auckland Latin Fiesta in November. 

Wade Kernot and Margaret Medlyn in upcoming performance with Orchestra Wellington

NZSM's Margaret Medlyn and Wade Kernot join Orchestra Wellington and Orpheus Choir to perform Gabriel Fauré’s profound and much-loved Requiem and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s brilliant Oratorio, The Bells this Saturday 3 October at the Michael Fowler Centre.  More info

Music Therapy Week

New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī Music Therapy graduates are featuring strongly in upcoming webinars developed to celebrate Music Therapy New Zealand’s Music Therapy Week 19-25 October 2020. Cici Kong (pipa) in collaboration with Hyannah Cho (guqin) present one on Musicking and cultural identity, and Ruby Solly presents Tāngata Whaiora – Working to Support Māori Students Receiving Music Therapy in Assisted Learning Environments. 

Jazz education outreach 

The jazz programme has been busy running a number of outreach activities with secondary school students recently. Staff collaborated with the Wellington Jazz Club to run a Secondary Schools Jazz Band Workshop at Rongotai College in September, and worked with the Martinborough Jazz Festival committee to present a day of workshops at Kuranui College in Greytown in August. 

From 9-13 December, the New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī hosts the New Zealand National Jazz Workshops. The workshops bring together New Zealand's enthusiastic jazz students together with NZ's top jazz musicians and educators, working on instrumental techniques, improvisation, ensemble skills, jazz theory, listening and performances. More info 

"Beautifully complicated"

Mo Zareei’s new 33-minute composition SOMETIME AFTER TWO, SOMEWHERE ELSE was reviewed by English sound art webzine ATTN:Magazine as "akin to watching a torchlight sweep over a wall in a ceaseless figure of eight...a simple premise, and the results are beautifully complicated… “

Jenny Wollerman in NZSO-SOUNZ-RNZC Recordings

This week Jenny Wollerman will be working on a NZSO-SOUNZ-RNZC recording of a work by young Christchurch composer Rosa Elliott called ‘What have you done to your rivers?’. Jenny will be the soprano soloist for the piece, being recorded by the NZSO in the Michael Fowler Centre, with baritone soloist Robert Tucker, and conductor Hamish McKeich. The NZSO-SOUNZ-RNZC Recordings is a collaboration between the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Centre for New Zealand Music (SOUNZ) and Radio New Zealand Concert.

Roger Sellars Emerging Artist Series, 1 Oct

The WJC Roger Sellers Emerging Artist Series was established to remember and pay tribute to much loved and respected drummer, educator, and mentor Roger Sellers. For this concert in the series, NZSM jazz piano honours student George Maclaurin and recent jazz graduate Lily Shaw will feature. More info

Student Profile - Jonathan Pirini

I grew up in the Far North about 30 minutes North of Kaitaia, which I still call home. I moved to the Wellington region 3 years ago to fulfill a life-long goal of studying music, specifically jazz. As a teacher, I would always encourage my students to continue learning and I had long been aware that I needed to do the same and had come to the end of what I could do myself.

I was raised in a Christian home and the church was an important training ground for my musicianship. I am grateful for this experience. I am on a journey of understanding my Maori heritage and am keen to bring my learning with the jazz palette to bring colour to my journey as Maori and as a Christian.

These past 3 years have been a huge challenge but incredibly rewarding. I am deeply grateful for the support I have received from my fellow students and  knowledge imparted to me by the tutors during my time at NZSM and look forward to remaining connected.

Tena ra koutou katoa!

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: