Composer Victoria Kelly Photo: Garth Badger
New Zealand composer Victoria Kelly started thinking about writing a requiem around 30 years ago, after her father died.
Some ideas need time to mature, and the result is Requiem, with a premiere at the Auckland Arts Festival on 11 March 2023.
It's shaped around poetry by five New Zealand poets - Bill Manhire, Sam Hunt, Chloe Honum, Ian Wedde and James K Baxter, and inspired by the visual language of photographer Anne Noble.
And while it draws on parts of the Latin Mass for the Dead, Victoria doesn't see it as a work about death.
"My Requiem is about life. It's not a religious work, I think it's a spiritual work, or at least it's a work that contemplates our essence through whatever lens we wish to view ourselves. But to me it's entirely about the experience of being alive."
Performed by Jayne Tankersley, Simon O'Neill, Luminata Voices and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vincent Hardaker at the Auckland Arts Festival concert 'Requiem', Auckland Town Hall, 11 March 2023.
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Producer: Tim Dodd, Engineer: Adrian Hollay.
