Musicians descended on Tallinn last Thursday to attend the 9-day annual ISCM World Music Days contemporary music festival. Works by four talented New Zealand composers featured at this exciting event, and all four composers made the 30-hour-plus journey to be there in Estonia. They are Alex Taylor, Tristan Carter, Nick Snowball and Simon Eastwood.
Simon says: "The ISCM World Music Days festival is a bit like a United Nations of contemporary music with musicians from all over the world coming together to present and talk about new music. I feel very lucky to have the chance to represent New Zealand in the beautiful medieval city of Tallinn. We've had the chance to see some great performances here, the local choirs are particularly outstanding!"
Here's a little bit about each of the NZ composers, and a taste of their music.
Simon Eastwood
Simon Eastwood with pianists Kadri-Ann Sumera and Talvi Hunt Photo: Alex Taylor
Simon's piece Interference was performed in the House of the Black Heads one of the oldest building complexes in Tallinn, and home of the medieval guild, the Brotherhood of Black Heads.
Simon says: "My piece 'Interference' is a sort of anti-duo. One player plays the piano keyboard while the other plays inside on the piano strings, manipulating the sound of the instrument. I am very grateful to CANZ for selecting my piece for the festival, and to Victoria University of Wellington for giving me the funds I needed to come."
It's an anti-duo because the two players don't strictly speaking perform as a duo. Instead a musical discourse is created by the way in which the two parts interfere with one another.
As yet, no recordings exist of any of the NZ works featured at World Music Days, but the sheet-music for Interference is available from SOUNZ Centre for NZ Music.
Here's a taste of Simon's other music though. The Spindle of Necessity is an earlier work which was chosen to represent New Zealand at the Asian Composer’s League Festival in Korea in 2009. In this video Stroma performs it at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Wellington.
Alex Taylor
Alex Taylor Photo: Priscilla Northe
Alex Taylor emailed us about his time at World Music Days. He says:
"The festival has been such a joy - the standard of performers, and particularly the choirs, is extremely high. To be enveloped by the sound of the Latvian Radio Choir was almost a spiritual experience - that is something people might put on a bucket list. And Tallinn is a fairy tale city. Simon, Tristan and I have been staying at an Air BnB in the heart of the medieval old town."
"As with any contemporary music festival there's a diversity of style and perspective - it's particularly nice to hear the large number of Estonian works, and to expand my knowledge of Estonian repertoire beyond Arvo Part."
Set up for Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes's opera The Beauty of Decay Photo: Alex Taylor
"The work of mine selected for the festival is called Three Endings. It's a simple sort of piece, almost child-like, sincere and sentimental but twisted a little. For the festival it is being included along with three other compositions in a concert that is more like a piece of music theatre than a traditional concert experience - involving experimental lighting, choreography and dialogue."
This is the second movement of Alex Taylor's A Coincidence of Surfaces performed by the Aroha String Quartet at the Michael Fowler Centre in 2016.
Tristan Carter
Tristan was both composer and performer of his improvised violin work at World Music Days. It was part of a concert series called Improtest that brings improvisational music from Estonian and foreign musicians to local audiences. The concerts have been taking place once a month since 2005, organised by non-profit organisation, Improtest.
Here's Tristan Carter on viola performing his work Ngaere with taonga pūoro player Al Fraser.
Nick Snowball
Nick Snowball Photo: Supplied
Nick Snowball was the youngest of the four NZ composers attending the festival in Tallinn. His work features elements of experimental-theatre, performance art, instrumental composition and mixed-media design.
His World Music Days entry X:NNN was a performance piece for two vocalists and soundscape about violence, and the kinds of sounds that come from it. Executive Director of SOUNZ, Diana Marsh attended the performance (and all the others!) and said it was a powerful work, calling Nick a very promising young composer.
Nick's work utilizes text, abstracted ritual and psychology to evoke an experimental perception of his performances. His musical theatre work IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET is a good example.
Nick writes, "IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET is an experimental work of musical-theatre representing an abstraction of my singular experience with sleep paralysis. As the dreamer experiences modulating environments, they remain naive to impulse, yet exhibit effective response to the sensorial events around them. The creative environment aspires to provide performers with agency and collaborative voices; this relinquishment of authority enacts a statement on the notion of artistic competition."
WARNING: Content may disturb. Contains gore, mild bondage, Shatner flashbacks and cheque fraud.
