ISCM World New Music Days - 'Kēkēao'

Mark Menzies and friends perform a programme of music from Aotearoa, Slovakia, Latvia, UK, and Finland.

Performers: Johnny Chang, Gabriela Glapska, Mark Menzies, Andrew Uren
This concert features new stormy and airborne musical imagery by local and international composers as part of the 100-year-old International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) World New Music Days, held in Aotearoa for the first time. 

The title of this concert, "kēkēao", is the Māori word for a dark rain cloud.

Daniel MATEJ: Stormy

— Mark Menzies (violin)

‘Stormy’ by Slovak composer Daniel Matej began its life in 2001 as part of some music he wrote for a theatre project in Vancouver. The storm movement from Vivaldi’s Winter Concerto from the Four Seasons served as a model for a section of this theatre music. And then in 2013, Matej rewrote the piece for solo violin for a friend.

Santa RATNIECE: In this white snow the pearls are lost

— Johnny Chang (violin), Andrew Uren (clarinet), Gabriela Glapska (piano)

This piece is inspired by and takes its title from some lines from a song of the Ladakh people in the Kashmir region of northern India: “In this white snow, the pearls are lost. Which is the way to find them?”

Sarah WESTWOOD: Furl

— Mark Menzies (amplified viola)

British composer Sarah Westwood writes: “A way for me to express how I may try to open up or withdraw internally was to focus on the physical unfurling of a fern leaf. I’m fascinated by how the plant curls up or unravels depending on different touch; human touch, water and light touch, heat and cold, and I thought about unravelling, or coiling up these possibilities with the viola.”

Mark MENZIES: Riroriro part ii - reflect/deflection

— Mark Menzies, Johnny Chang (violins)

‘reflect/deflection’ is part two of Mark Menzies' larger work Riroriro.

He writes that the music circles back on itself much like the grey warbler or riroriro’s warbles do.

Sanna AHVENJÄRVI: No Piece By Violance

— Mark Menzies (viola)

In the title of the composition No Piece by Violance (2002-2003), the word “piece” refers to the word ”peace” and the word ”violance” refers to the word ”violence”. With this “enharmonic” title of the work, the Finnish composer made a statement against the war in Iraq.

James GARDNER: Knot

— Mark Menzies (viola), Andrew Uren (clarinet)

Knot was written in 1996 as a wedding present for bass clarinettist Andrew Uren and cellist Katherine Hebley. This version for clarinet and viola was prepared in 2001.

Gardner writes that “One source of the title, reflected in the music, is a line from John Donne’s poem The Exstasie, which – on one level – depicts two lovers physically and spiritually entwined.

Alison ISADORA: Playtime

— Mark Menzies (violin, hi-hat)

Alison Isadora is a New Zealand composer who’s been based in Amsterdam since the late 1980s. Her biography states that one of her early music making memories was being asked to play violin for the gang members who lifted weights in the family garage. Tough gig.

Her piece Playtime is part of a cycle of works in which performers use foot percussion. She writes: “I was fascinated by Korean shamanistic music, in this piece specifically how the width and speed of vibrato is controlled. When does a wide vibrato become a glissando, for instance? Percussion instruments have clear functions in Korean music, and I wanted to play with this role but also challenge the violinist to provide their own rhythmic accompaniment with the hi-hat."

James GARDNER: Queer Studies 3: Muscae volitantes

— Mark Menzies (violin)

Written for and dedicated to Mark Menzies, this is the third of Gardner's ongoing cycle of pieces for solo violin, Queer Studies. This one has the title Muscae volitantes – Latin for ‘Flying Flies’.

Helen BOWATER: Quiet birds in circled flight

— Mark Menzies (violin)

Written in 2022, Quiet Birds in Circled Flight was Auckland composer Helen Bowater's response to the death of Lyell Cresswell … “a magnificent and quirky composer, dear to many of us”, she writes.

Her programme note goes on: “The oscillating ostinato presents a meditative foil and still centre for this direct and reflective lament.”

Recorded by RNZ Concert, University of Auckland Music Theatre, 26 August 2022
Producer, engineer: Tim Dodd

The World New Music Days were held in Auckland and Christchurch in July 2022. They were originally to be in 2020 but Covid-19 caused the postponement. Auckland composer and the president of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM), Glenda Keam  was the director of the festival.

Here, she speaks to Tim Dodd:

Other World New Music Days concerts:
Tiraki
Ngā Kaiwaka