Photo: Supplied / Rod Biss
It's nice for composers to get their music performed.
It's even nicer when those works get another hearing. This time it's with the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra and soprano Rebecca Ryan.
Rod Biss was delighted when the orchestra contacted him about performing his Four New Zealand Bird Songs.
The Auckland-based composer won't be able to make it to the concert this weekend, but then he is in his 90th year.
Biss wrote the piece in 2014 after hearing about plans for a golf course development near a Northland beach which just happens to be an important nesting site for the rare fairy tern - the tara iti.
Listen to RNZ's recording of Four New Zealand Bird Songs:
Photo: Supplied / Darren Markin
But Biss's contribution to New Zealand classical music goes way beyond composition. He's also been one of the country's leading music publishers.
Biss spoke with Bryan Crump about his music and his publishing career, which began when he was studying in London and needed a job to support his composing.
In 1959, he joined the music publishers Schott as production manager, then in 1965 when Faber & Faber moved into music, Biss became Faber Music's first production director.
The experience of creating a music offshoot for an established publisher proved invaluable when Biss returned to New Zealand and helped set up a music publishing arm for Price Milburn, where he was responsible for building up a catalogue of New Zealand music and educational publications.
Crump asked Biss about the fairy terns that inspired Four New Zealand Bird Songs back in 2014.
The development went ahead, although the business behind it undertook to protect the bird's habitat.
Since then, it's been down and now maybe up for the fairy terns, which were badly hit by Cyclone Gabrielle. The total population is less than 40, but this year's breeding season is hoped to be the best since the 2013-14 season when Biss wrote the work.
The poet Denys Trussell wrote the words, which Biss set to music.
Along with the poem dedicated to the tara iti, there is also a song for the birds of the Hauraki Gulf, one inspired by the karearea (the New Zealand falcon), and perhaps Biss's sentimental favourite, a song for the pukeko.
Also getting a look in with the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra this weekend. Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
