12 Apr 2017

Tabea SQUIRE: Ao

From NZ Composer Sessions, 12:00 am on 12 April 2017

'Ao' is a word that means many things – it can be the cloud which resides in the name 'Aotearoa', or it can mean 'mist'; it can mean 'earth', or this whole world, and it can mean 'dawn', or 'shining'. Even the name 'Aotearoa' has been translated in many ways: 'land of abiding day'; 'long daylight'; 'long white world'; 'continuously clear light'.

"Our southern sun does seem somehow starker, sharper, than should be, so midday's light is a welter of oversaturated brightness battling the omnipresent, stark, dark shadow. When the overbright noonlight shines the strongest, the vivid shadows turn the scene blacker and stranger than broad daylight should be. And then again, when this incandescent sun is sinking and failing in softening airs, and the shadows swell in size and plentitude, the sunlight seems to inhabit the very air; so, the midday battle of shade and shine sublimates into a glowing gloaming, where true stark darkness seems not to exist at all.

'Ao' is a word that could mean all that is so true of this land of the long white cloud, land of the mists and brightness, land of rain and rainbows, land of sun and stars; this shining land." ~ Tabea Squire

Biography

Tabea Squire

Tabea Squire Photo: Eustie Kamath

Tabea Squire began formal lessons on the violin at the age of six, and started regularly composing from the age of fourteen. As a young adult, she was enthusiastically involved with youth music programmes, playing as a regular member of the National Youth Orchestra, New Zealand School of Music Orchestra, and the Adam Chamber Music Summer School. She completed her BMus with Honours in performance violin at the NZSM in 2012.

Tabea was also a regular attendee of the NZSO/Todd Corporation Young Composer Awards, being accepted five times between 2006 and 2014. She was selected as a finalist at the NZSM Composers' Competition every year between 2007 and 2011. She has had works commissioned by the New Zealand String Quartet, the Manawatu Sinfonia, the Wellington Chamber Orchestra in conjunction with the Recorders and Early Music Union, the IRMT branch of Wellington, and the NZSQ in conjunction with the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra of Beijing. She has had works performed by professional and amateur ensembles in New Zealand, Australia, China, Europe, and Britain. In 2008, she was selected as Composer-in-Residence of the NZSO NYO. In 2016, she was named as Orchestra Wellington's Jack Body Composer-in-Residence.

Recorded 12 April 2017, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert for 2017 NZ Composer Sessions.

Producer: David McCaw

Engineer: Graham Kennedy

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