Gillian Whitehead for NZ Music Month

It’s New Zealand Music Month so everyone has been posting clips of pop music – me included (with this link to the heavenly “Tears”) but see Homepaddock for loads more and links to mega-loads more. But there is more to New Zealand music than guitars, drums and a four-four beat. Possibly there is jazz. What interests me more is contemporary classical, for want of a better description of what our composers are doing. My favourite is Gillian Whitehead.

Here on YouTube (link only, sorry – embedding has been disabled) is her six-minute piano piece Arapatiki performed by Stephen de Pledge. The composer writes:

Arapatiki, which translates as “the way of the flounder”, is the name given to the sand flats in the Otago Harbour in front of my house. Material suggesting the inexorable ebbing and flowing of the tide and the call of the korimako (bellbird) are the basic ideas propelling the piece.

Do stay till the end for the bonus interview.