Maria Grenfell Photo: Anthony McKee
Maria Grenfell didn't know the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra was going to play her tone poem, "Stealing Tutunui" until someone pointed the programme out to her.
The Christchurch-raised composer visited RNZ's Christchurch studio the day before the performance for a chat with RNZ Concert host, Bryan Crump.
"Stealing Tutunui" is based on a Maori legend of a whale, its capture by a sinister priest, Kae, and the efforts of its owners to get Tutunui back.
It's a piece Grenfell composed over twenty years ago while working in Los Angeles, at a time when she was interested in forming her identity as a New Zealand composer.
Grenfell is, however, very much a global citizen. She was born in Malaysia to a Malaysian mother and Kiwi Dad, who persuaded the family to move south to Christchurch where Grenfell grew up, and where she made the most of the city's vibrant music scene playing the violin.
But Grenfell's prodigious talent as a young composer - Crump was amazed that another opus of hers played before the interview, "Clockwerk", was written when she was still a student at Canterbury University - saw her leaving New Zealand to further her studies in the United States.
And when Grenfell did return to the Southern Hemisphere, it was to teach and compose in Australia where she now has a job as an Associate Professor at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music.
This reminds Crump of the interview he had with the Australian conductor Ingrid Martin (who is this year's New Zealand Assistant Conductor-in-Residence) in which she pointed out two nations claim Grenfell as their own these days.
In answer to questions about her nationality, Grenfell says she still travels on a New Zealand passport, although in Australian she's regarded as an Australian composer.
"It really doesn't bother me too much. I quite enjoy being able to dip a toe in both ponds."
And these days she has an Australian husband, the guitarist David Malone, and together they're bringing up two children.
Maria Grenfell Photo: Anthony McKee
The inspiration for Grenfell's latest piece is also very Australian. It's the soundtrack to a documentary on the plight of the endangered marsupial, the Tasmanian Devil, which has been hit by wave of cancer that can spread from one animal to the next.
She's editing some of the music for a performance by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in May.
Regardless of what side of the Tasman is fuelling her creative energy, Grenfell admits the toughest part of her job as a composer is getting started.
When she's already busy - teaching composing at University or looking after her children - Grenfell says it's hard to find what a friend of hers calls "staring at the wall time".
"I need to have a lot of thinking time before I actually start writing music ... but then once I've started and then I realise 'oh no, I could do this technique, or I could use this' ... then that sort of gives you confidence and you can rely on your training and craft."
