Dawn Chorus: May 2022

Welcome to New Zealand’s May Music Month with our Dawn Chorus!

Our opening portrait of jazz saxophonist alumna Eilish Wilson, a Fulbright Scholar whose California Institute of the Arts postgraduate studies are winning acclaim, exemplifies NZSM Jazz Performance energies.

Our musicians contributed to Creative Nātives’ Kaupapa Anthems ANZAC celebrations, and Rodger Fox has just released his Big Band arrangements of Sir Dave Dobbyn’s best-known songs. This week’s Jazz Project, a major event for our School and future students, is live-streamed to offer exciting openings to burgeoning enthusiasts throughout the country, with a live (and streamed) evening concert finale.

In our nationally unique Music Therapy programme, alumna and Teaching Fellow Dr Carolyn Ayson is sparking international interest in her PhD research on holistic social and environmental approaches to music-making for disabled people.

Covid setting changes are now happily allowing NZSM staff and students to more freely perform for our audiences: orchestral, brass and string ensemble, and piano activities are on the rise, while voice staff and alumni are singing us back to the joys of live performance.

NZSM alumni are composing prestigious commissions and work drawing on the sonic resources of our natural environment, while Te Kōkī’s vibrant world is enriched by the resonance of Composer in Residence Jerome Kavanagh’s taonga puoro.

Sally Jane Norman

Events

Jazz Project 2022

This year's Jazz Project will offer an afternoon programme of live-streamed open-rehearsal workshops, where NZSM staff with guest artist saxophonist and alumnus Dr. Lucien Johnson will work with four NZSM students ensembles. These ensembles will also perform in a live-streamed (and in-person) evening concert.

The open-rehearsal workshops will take place from 2:00 pm - 4.15 pm, with two rooms running simultaneous workshops. Both rooms will be live-streamed so that teachers and students can switch between the two live streams as they wish. These open-rehearsal workshops will focus on the feedback that the guest artists and NZSM staff provide to student ensembles, and provide school students with a window into how university-level and professional-level ensembles operate.

Please note that these workshops are pre-registered for high school students only. The 7:00 pm Concert at the Memorial Theatre is open to the public to attend under the orange traffic light system. We ask that you please sign up to attend the concert by emailing nzsmevents@vuw.ac.nz. For more information on Jazz Project 2022 read more here.

Queen's Birthday Chamber Music Weekend

Above from left to right: Rolf Gjelsten, Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, and Gillian Ansell

NZSM will be celebrating the Queens Birthday weekend with our Chamber Music series from Saturday the 4th to Monday the 6th of June. The weekend will include coaching from professional members of the New Zealand String Quartet and other NZSM staff.

Registrations are now closed for the event, however, there will be a concert from 2 pm on Monday that will be open to friends, family, and the public. Students ranging in ages from 11 to 18 years old will perform a wide range of repertoire that they are preparing for the NZCT Chamber Music Contest. This will be held in the Adam Concert Room.

NZSM Orchestra Concert 2022

Above: Alumnus Nickolas Majic, recently awarded his Master of Musical Arts in Performance, playing for an earlier NZSM Orchestra performance.

The NZSM Orchestra, conducted by Martin Riseley, will perform four stunning works from the nineteenth century in their concert at St. Andrews on the Terrace: the Overture to the Opera “Italian in Algiers”, by Giacomo Rossini, Hector Berlioz’s thrilling overture Le Corsaire, Franz Schubert’s Third Symphony in D major, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture “Romeo and Juliet”. The concert will be on June the 3^rd and starts at 7:30 pm.

Lunchtime Concerts

NZSM will be celebrating music month this May by showcasing a large variety of music every Friday afternoon in the Adam Concert Room from 12:10-1:00 pm. The concerts are free, open to the public with no booking is required.

NZSM Brass Ensemble - 6th May

Join the NZSM Large Brass Ensemble led by Shannon Pittaway on a varied and spirited lunchtime concert this Friday, 6th May - 12:10 pm. Featuring Kiwi composer, Ken Wilson’s rarely performed “Suite for Brass”. They will also perform music arranged for brass ensemble such as Bruckner’s “Ave Maria” and Bach’s “Contrapunctus XIV” from the art of the fugue. Bernstein’s exciting “Shivaree” and Crespo’s “Spirit of Brass” will round out this concert (with a few added surprises) and send you on your way uplifted and ready for the weekend. Read more here.

Oro Atua with Puoro Jerome Kavanagh - 13th May

Above: Jerome Kavanagh

Join us in the Adam concert room on the 13th of May with Taonga Puoro practitioner and Composer in Residence Jerome Kavanagh sharing the Oro Atua utilising his whanau collection of Taonga Puoro.

“Te Haa o Pohokura” to create a journey into the songs of nature. Relax, revive and reconnect to our natural world through Māori music and our Atua Māori.

New Zealand String Quartet - 20th May

Above: Sarah Ballard

New Zealand String Quartet will be joining NZSM for our weekly lunchtime concert in the Adam Concert Room on the 20th of May from 12:10 pm. Celebrating music month, the Quartet's piece, composed by NZSM alumna Sarah Ballard, will consist of a meditation on the ancient Sanskrit text, the Brahma-saṁhitā. Brahma-saṁhitā describes the transcendental personality ‘Govinda’, “who is adept in playing on His flute, with blooming eyes like lotus petals with a head decked with peacock's feather, with the figure of beauty tinged with the hue of blue clouds, and His unique loveliness charming millions of Cupids.”

This charming text describes this personality and his fantastic abode, which has “thousands of petals and a corolla like that of a lotus, the whorl of the leaves being the actual abode of Govinda.” The string quartet hopes to portray the majesty and beauty of the descriptions from within this ancient poem and express the inherent beauty of their instruments.

Collaborative Piano Duets - May 27th

Celebrating New Zealand music month we will have our very own NZSM students performing collaborative piano duets on May 27th from 12:10 pm in the Adam Concert Room.

Jonathan Jung and Joohae Kim- 1st June

Above: Jonathan Jung

South Korean-New Zealand pianists Jonathan Jung and Joohae Kim will be joining us for a special lunchtime concert on Wednesday the 1st of June in the Adam Concert room from 12:10 pm. Jonathan Jung concertizes regularly across the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, South Korea, and Japan. He has been featured as a Guest Artist at the Texas State International Piano Festival and Brevard Summer Music Festival.

Jonathan has performed with the Eastman Philharmonic Orchestra, Korean Philharmonic Orchestra of New Zealand, University of Auckland Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Youth Orchestra, and Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra. Jonathan received prizes in Kerikeri Piano Competition, Eastman Concerto Competition, Kapiti Coast National Piano Competition, and Christchurch National Piano Concerto Competition. His solo recitals and concerto performances have been recorded and broadcasted by Radio New Zealand, World TV, and WSMC-FM. Read more here.

Born in South Korea, New Zealand pianist Dr. Joo Hae Kim began learning the piano at the age of three. She studied piano performance at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with first class under the guidance of leading pedagogue Dr. Rae de Lisle. In 2008, she received an invitation to study at Florida State University, later completing her Doctor of Music degree in Piano Performance under Dr. Read Gainsford. Her research centered on four selected Landscape Preludes, and she made her debut at Carnegie Hall performing these works in 2012.

Dr. Kim’s performances have earned numerous prizes in major piano competitions, including the Kerikeri Piano Competition, Kapiti Coast National Piano Competition, and Christchurch National Piano Concerto Competition. As a soloist, she has collaborated with Magnolia Chamber Orchestra, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, and Bach Musica Chamber Orchestra of New Zealand.

Above: Joo Hae Kim

Marlborough Opera Festival 2022

The inaugural Marlborough Opera Festival, to be held in Blenheim from June 24 - 26th, is being launched in association with the ASB Theatre Marlborough, Whitehaven Wines, Creative Communities Marlborough, and Wanderlust Opera. The creation of NZSM alumna and Artist Teacher Georgia Jamieson-Emms, Wanderlust Opera has produced Georgia's highly original collaborations with VUW Theatre Arts alumna Jacqueline Coats.

The Marlborough event begins with an Opera Gala on Friday 24th June featuring established singers and emerging talent associated with all our major national opera institutions. The festival will conclude with Mozart's Cosi fan tutte on Sunday 26 June, a concert performance in English, directed by Jacqueline Coats with musical direction by David Kelly and a stellar cast including NZSM alumni Christian Thurston and of course our greatly admired Georgia!

For more information and updates: https://www.facebook.com/marlboroughopera

WCO 50th Anniversary Concert

NZSM bass-baritone alumnus Samuel McKeever is performing in Gareth Farr’s Terra Incognita, in Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary Concert conducted by Rachel Hyde:

May 28, 3 pm, at the Alan Gibbs Centre, Wellington College.

News

2022 SOUNZ Commission for Orchestra and Sistema Youth Orchestra winner announced

NZSM alumnus and Wellington-based composer Glen Dowie has been selected for the 2022 SOUNZ Commission for Orchestra and Sistema Youth Orchestra.

Glenn holds a Master of Musical Arts from Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music, where he studied under Michael Norris and Dugal McKinnon.

Above: Glen Dowie photo courtesy of SOUNZ

Glen will be working with Orchestra Wellington and Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley on new work and is looking forward to writing a ‘children-led’ piece, enhanced by the Orchestra Wellington musicians.

Glen said in an interview with SOUNZ, “I’m pleased to be awarded the commission to write for Arohanui Strings and Orchestra Wellington. It gives me a chance to revisit the things that excited me about music when I was younger and it will be a lot of fun to explore whilst writing a new piece that will be fun, energetic, and inspire the tamariki to keep playing and exploring music further.”

Read the full article here.

Charles Haden Scholarship for Eilish Wilson, NZSM Jazz Graduate, and Fulbright Scholar!

Above: Eilish Wilson

Saxophonist and NZSM alumna Eilish Wilson, currently Los Angeles based with a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her Master of Fine Arts in performance at California Institute of the Arts, has been selected as the recipient of the Charles Haden scholarship. This merit-based, named donor scholarship is used to fund a portion of Eilish’s institutional CalArts scholarship.

It is a prestigious award confirming that Faculty have identified Eilish as a top student. This honour is particularly significant given Charles Haden’s legacy: as a ground-breaking, internationally renowned jazz bass player (1937-2014), and founder of the experimental, politically engaged Liberation Music Orchestra, Haden established the jazz studies program at CalArts in 1982.

Music Therapy Researcher and Teaching Fellow Dr Carolyn Ayson publishes on Post-Ableist Music Therapy research

Dr Carolyn Shaw (she/her) is a New Zealand Registered Music Therapist and teaching fellow at the New Zealand School of Music, Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa. Her music therapy practice has predominantly centred on working with children, their families, and schools. Carolyn has an interest in critical approaches, posthumanism, and disability studies.

Dr Carolyn Ayson, has had an aspect of her PhD project published recently in the open-access International Journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.

Shaw, C. (2022). An Autoethnographic Journey in Developing Post-Ableist Music Therapy. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v22i1.3314

Music Therapy Programme Director, Associate Professor Sarah Hoskyns, met with Carolyn recently and they shared a short interview about Carolyn’s PhD research publication. Read the full interview here.

Above: Dr Carolyn Ayson

Rongo Toa (Battalion Anthems)

Above from left to right: Nai McGregor, Whatitiri Te Wake, Kawiti Waetford, and, Lee Cooper, photo courtesy of Creative Nātives

When composer Anania Amohau (Te Arawa) taught soldiers at Trentham Military Camp 'March to Victory' in 1940 they quickly took to the rhythm. It became their marching song.

NZSM Jazz Teaching Fellow and keyboards player Dan Hayles, jazz saxophonist and NZSM Artist Teacher Bryn Van Vliet, and alumnus jazz trumpeter Jack Harre, took part in a production called 'Rongo Toa', a series by Creative Nātives and Hāni Dread commemorating and celebrating the waiata of the 28th Māori Battalion on Anzac Day. Creative Nātives and Hāni Dread selected five Battalion Anthems to honour our ancestors who served as part of the Pioneers and the 28th Māori Battalion and recognises the creativity and aroha behind these waiata which have become a big part of our history across generations.

Watch Rongo Toa here.

Walking to his own drum

Above: Ivan Clayden walking the Te Araroa Trail photo courtesy of Wilderness Magazine

NZSM Composition alumnus Ivan Clayden walked the 3000km Te Araroa Trail (the walking track that follows the length of New Zealand). As he went, he recorded sounds of the environment using a field recorder, and these sounds are now being incorporated into his music.

Wilderness Magazine recently interviewed him, asking about his highlights and lowlights on the trail. Read more about Ivan's adventure here.

Reimagined! The Rodger Fox Big Band plays Sir Dave Dobbyn’s much-loved anthems

The Rodger Fox Big Band’s latest recording, Reimagined! Was released on the 2nd of April 2022. Featuring the music of Sir Dave Dobbyn, the eleven tracks include the much-loved anthems Bliss, Be Mine Tonight, Magic (What She Do), Loyal, Outlook for Thursday, Don’t Drink Water, Love You Like I Should, Welcome Home, A Bridge on Fire, Walking in Light and Slice of Heaven.

With Sir Dave Dobbyn’s blessing, Rodger Fox gathered the best New Zealand and international arrangers and, together with the assembled talents of the Rodger Fox Big Band, produced a stellar recording of some of this country’s best-known songs.

Sir Dave Dobbyn said, “I'm struck by the punch and enthusiasm of the band for these fun arrangements. Great players plus Rodger Fox's big sound makes for a wild ride. I'm glad Rodger had a ball with the tunes as a source to let fly freely, Stretch that riff man. Go, Rodger.”

Available from www.rodgerfoxbigband.com

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:

Prof Sally Jane Norman
Director, New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī
Ph: 04 463 5860
Email: sallyjane .norman @vuw.ac.nz

Rosalene Fogel
Senior Development Manager—Bequests and Special Projects
Development Office
Ph: 0800 VIC LEGACY (0800 842 534)
Email: rosalene.fogel@vuw.ac.nz
www.wgtn.ac.nz/foundation