21x21: Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts 2022

The World Premiere of 21 x 21 by soprano Jenny Wollerman and concert pianist Jian Liu artfully pairs Aotearoa’s female composers and poets in 21 newly written songs celebrating the unique cultural and social kaupapa of Māori and Pākehā.

Why 21? Because the songs would be written in 2021, and firmly based in 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand. A song recital programme of 21 songs seemed a good length too. By profiling the work of 21 female composers and poets from Aotearoa New Zealand, this project would strengthen and diversify the musical canon and bring forth a fresh new set of works relevant to this time we live in. The unique experience of here and now comes through in the diverse selection of texts and music, just as I hoped for.

Mere Boynton – Āio

Music and words by Mere Boynton, arranged by Glenda Keam

As Māori we see the world through a dual lens: the feminine and the masculine, dark and light, sacred and profane. Right at this moment in our world the masculine is dominant and the feminine has become enslaved and silenced. This imbalance has been manifested in our selfish consumption and destruction of Papatūānuku. Āio is a karanga a call out to the universe to return the divine feminine to wāhine, to woman and to Papatūānuku, Earth mother and therefore bring balance and peace to our world.

Josie Burdon – When I First Asked For My Whakapapa

Poem by Miriama Gemmell

Rosa Elliott – Of Trees and Hope

Poem by Dinah Hawken

The century-old tree bears many rings of wisdom. Painted with simple melancholic lines, Of Trees and Hope presents the lessons one may learn from such a tree as expressed by poet Dinah Hawken. A knowledge of the tree’s patient waiting and slow strengthening are particularly appropriate for times in which we too find ourselves ‘bound to the earth’ and grappling with the grief of a pandemic. Hidden in the bare-boned harmonies is a tinge of hope.

Gillian Whitehead – Because of the child

Poem by Fiona Farrell

Fiona Farrell wrote the poem Because of the child for me to set, and for it to be sung at a meeting outside the Dunedin museum to launch Sir Alan Mark’s ‘Wise response’ movement, which proposes that government parties work together to address our overwhelming climate change issues. Note: the ‘blue hats’ on the houses refer to the tarpaulins that covered many houses after the Christchurch earthquakes.

Claire Cowan – My Sister’s Country

Poem by Rhian Gallagher

Aiono Manu Fa’aea – Ala Mai Moana

Words and music by Aiono Manu Fa’aea

The inspiration for this piece is a call to action for Moana to rise up and claim her place in the world by looking at Moana in multiple ways; one as the ocean, two as the people of the ocean and three as a personal conversation between parent and child to remind them of the legacy that parents want them to continue. The gift that parents can give their children who are seen as ‘oloa or koloa (gifts) include passing on knowledge and stories, hopes and dreams of the family for their young.

Deborah Wai Kapohe – Kia Hora Te Marino

Poem text set to music by Deborah Wai Kapohe, arranged by Glenda Keam

This poem is associated in its original form with Ngāti Maniapoto/Ngāti Rereahu, of the King Country/ Maniapoto region. It is now used widely in shorter forms such as this one, which can be found on the Playcentre website as a Karakia Tīmatanga (Opening Incantation).

Salina Fisher – If I could land

Poem by Sarah Broom

Celeste Oram – The Power of Moss

Poem by Jo Randerson

An excerpt from Jo Randerson’s live research performance for Secret Art Powers (her upcoming book) at Lit Crawl 2021 encapsulates the feminist philosophy of continuance that underscores her poem ‘AND’ in this song.

Right now, it’s not the power of the sword we need but the power of moss the oldest surviving plant EVER it’s not tall, it doesn’t thrust up above everything else It doesn’t define itself well, there’s no shiny grand statement it just quietly and softly persists and is known in every continent.

This song is dedicated to Carmel Carroll and Ronnie Karadjov, the two flame-haired women who taught me how to sing.

Jenny McLeod – Nā Kui ki a Tama: Te Pūroto Kōpua / Big Sis to Little Bro: The Deep Dark Pool (I, II, III, IV)

Words and music by Jenny McLeod

Janet Jennings – Talking of Goldfish

Poem by Jeni Curtis

This charming and whimsical poem by Jeni Curtis pops us gently into the watery worlds of fish. Are goldfish devoid of memory as they circle their bowls? Do flounder ponder the flatness of the earth from the flatness of their estuaries? Do salmon recollect which stream to follow? Do herrings in their flurried shoals share a single thought? Finally, the poet sinks into the sea of her own memory. The song is a synthesis of words and music. Individual words, phrases, and stanzas are painted musically as well as the overall mood and delicate structure of the poem. The composer hopes that the music will encourage listeners to immerse themselves in the worlds of the text.

Leonie Holmes – Wild Light

Poem by Michele Leggott

Gemma Peacocke – Night train to Anyang

Poem by Nina Mingya Powles

Helen Bowater – Out in the Garden

Poem by Katherine Mansfield

The 1917 poem may well allude to the garden surrounding Chesney Wold, Karori, where Mansfield’s family lived from 1893-98, and reflect the nostalgia she felt for these happiest times of her childhood. Her brother Leslie’s death during a grenade training drill in October, 1915, profoundly affected her and inspired writings drawn from her childhood experience such as the short stories See-saw (1917) and Prelude (1915-18) - the latter based on the family’s move to Karori.

I also lived in this area as a child and immediately responded to the intensity, simplicity, implied mystery and sense of exultation on a swing anchored by a towering tree, see-sawing over hedges and flower-beds in ‘the windy, swinging dark.

Helen Fisher – O Little One

Poem by Lauris Edmond

Lauris Edmond’s poignant lyrics bring to life the April 1843 story of an intimate relationship between a compassionate woman, Sarah Ironside, with a baby in her care, the daughter of murder victim Rangihaua Kuika, who was a niece of Te Rauparaha. This was a time of increasing tension between some Māori and settlers which led to the June 1843 Wairau Affray, New Zealand’s first Land War. Earlier, Sarah’s husband, Samuel Ironside, had been persuading the victim’s family and friends to put their faith in the new justice system, which had been established for all New Zealanders after the Treaty of Waitangi signing. But he and they were shocked when Rangihaua’s murderer, a Pākehā called Dick Cook was tried and discharged, this verdict being justified because “It was only a Māori girl”. Originally from the music drama Taku Wana (1998/2002) the composing process for O Little One (2021) began in 1993 : a journey of kōrero and whanaungatanga, with Maui John and Hilary Mitchell (historians), Rangimoana Taylor (Artistic Director), Lauris Edmond (poet) Linden Loader (mezzo soprano), kuia and kaumatua of Whakatū Marae, and finally in 2021, with Jenny Wollerman (soprano) and Jian Liu (piano) as part of 21 x 21.

Leila Adu-Gilmore – Massacre

Poem by Tusiata Avia

There is a pristine colonial manicured garden city filled with a radical underbelly of musicians, artists, and activists; this is Christchurch. I grew up in a place where I encountered racist experiences from being a little girl being called the ‘N’ word at school and countless other microagressions that I thought were normal and that made me feel like I did not belong; this place is also Christchurch. These competing notions of this place I called home shaped how I view the world today. I’m proud of this community and the interconnectedness that people showed each other during and after the 2011 earthquake, yet these two Christchurches still exist and lead to the events that inspired this piece.

When I was asked by Jenny Wollerman to work with a New Zealand female poet, I thought of Tusiata Avia who I’d met years before in New York. When I saw her poem Massacre I immediately knew that this was a song I could write: it resonated on so many levels. When the Christchurch massacre happened, I’d just started teaching at NYU. I heard a Muslim leader on the news say that the public could support the community by going to mosque in solidarity, and I’d never been to one. I went to the NYU mosque and saw the community—everyone mourning, a girl in tears because she felt so scared that people were coming to attack them. They asked me to speak on behalf of faculty, and as someone from Christchurch, along with interfaith leaders, a Christian priest, a Muslim imam and Jewish rabbi. The feeling of togetherness was palpable. When I saw this poem, I knew that I needed to make this a piece of music as a remembrance. This is not an easy poem or piece, but it’s real. The massacre really happened and we must never forget that ignorance can take violent forms, and that we must be vigilant in our daily quest for peace. The piece begins with the ‘Thursday 14 March’ section, with dreamy birdlike piano to lower driving chords becoming blurred, with an abstract vocal style including microtones influenced by Māori waiata. In the next selected section ‘Sunday 17 March,’ I demonstrate the opposites and irony of the poem as I move through different textures from vocals and piano that edges towards schmaltzy and romantic juxtaposed with brutalist Russian Ustvolskayan style piano. The piece developed into arpeggios reminiscent of Schubert’s Wintereisse but laced with Arabic scales.

Eve de Castro-Robinson – Riven

Poem by Roma Potiki

I was immediately struck by Roma Potiki’s powerful words and strong, stark images – dark, impassioned, spiky and percussive – and begging to be coaxed into sound. The song should be delivered as a kind of ritual; intense, urgent, yet contained and still. The piano part has an uncompromising quality, with a palpable intensity. Much of its material is percussive, either on the body of the instrument, or a few prepared notes.

This song is dedicated to the memory of my husband Ken, who died in 2021.

Miriama Young – With you – without you

Poem by Panni Palásti

Inspired by musical evocations inherent in the poem, I sought to capture the ebb of the tide, and the rhythms of music and metronome both incessant and gone ‘haywire’, as symbols for the heart both pulsating and yearning. My thanks to Panni Palásti for generously creating and sharing this poem.

Louise Webster – Inhabiting every sounding sea

Poem by Peggy Dunstan

For this song I wanted words and music that spoke to the strong and enduring relationships among women. I found ‘… and her ashes scattered upon the waters’, a poem by Peggy Dunstan in which she writes with such vivid and compelling imagery of the continuing bonds between two women, even after

the death of one. The music I have written is shaped by Peggy’s words – in turn strong, brittle, sharp, dissonant, tender, translucent, fragile, yearning, and above all, enduring.

Tabea Squire – He Wawata kia Māhorahora: Freedom

Poem in Te Reo and English by Arapera

Maria Grenfell – Listening to The Goldberg Variations

Poem by Elizabeth Smither

Looking for a text to set for Jenny Wollerman’s epic 21 x 21 project, I came across a beautiful poem titled Listening to The Goldberg Variations by New Zealand poet Elizabeth Smither. Rhapsodic and musical in its use of language, it paints a dreamy and imaginative picture of two people escaping a “disagreeable dinner party” and finding a piano, where the gentleman plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations. It seemed an opportunity to use some snippets of Bach amidst the rest of the musical setting.

Programme notes by Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts

The concert was recorded in Wellington's Michael Fowler Centre by Radio New Zealand Concert.

Produced and Engineered by David Houston
Technical Assistance by Sam Smaill