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Upcoming Events

Erika Grant (gongs) / Daniel Beban (tapes) and Thomas Arbor

Concert

Orchestra of Spheres bandmates Erika Grant and Daniel Beban team up for a special duo concert of gongs and reel-to-reel tapes. Erika is a musician and astrologer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She has 30+ years musical experience in bands including Cookie Brooklyn and the Crumbs. Over the past few years Erika has developed a sound bathing practice using gongs, bowls and chimes. She is interested in the healing properties of sound for mental and physical wellbeing.

The sound of Erika's gongs and chimes will be manipulated via Revox reel-to-reel by Daniel Beban. Dan first started experimenting with tape machines as a Studio Manager at the BBC World Service, London. In the downtime during BBC nightshifts he would inhabit the subterranean radio studios, setting up tape loops between multiple reel-to-reels. Often joined in these adventures by UK musician Alexander Tucker as the duo Imbogodom, this work resulted three releases on the Chicago-based label Thrill Jockey.

Opening up is electronic musician Thomas Arbor (aka. Thomas Lambert), a composer, producer and audio engineer living in Pōneke. Thomas runs Sonorous Circle, an Oceanian outlet for adventurous music and art. Previously known under the moniker i.Ryoko, Thomas' assortment of associated projects include Kōtiro, Seth Frightening and Perpetual Balance. He also curates the regular Works for Loudspeakers events.

November 29, 2024 20:00   ·   Pyramid Club

Orchestra Wellington | A Modern Hero

Concert

Eve de Castro Robinson | Hour of Lead
Benjamin Britten | War Requiem

Morag Atchison - soprano
Benson Wilson - baritone
The Orpheus Choir of Wellington

Britten was steeped in the English choral tradition and its liturgical music. In 1962, he was able to fulfil his long-held desire to compose a large‑scale choral work when he was asked to provide music for the dedication of Coventry Cathedral, rebuilt after Luftwaffe bombs Coventry’s beloved 14th-century Cathedral. An important symbolic occasion, it allowed Britten to air in public his pacifist beliefs and his faith in humanity’s capacity for compassion. In a break from tradition, he blended the traditional Latin mass for the dead with nine of Wilfred Owens’ poems from WW1. In Britten’s own words, he offered the War Requiem as “an act of reparation”. On the title page of the score, he quoted the poet, "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity …All a poet can do today is warn.”

The Requiem requires huge forces: a very large orchestra, a smaller chamber orchestra which accompanies the soloists, two organs, three soloists, main chorus, and boys’ choir. When it was first recorded, the Requiem sold 200,000 copies within five months — a rare example of a contemporary work that was immediately embraced by the public.

Stravinsky noticed, and sniped, "Behold the critics as they vie in abasement before the wonder of native-born genius. Kleenex at the ready, and feeling as though one had failed to stand up for God Save The Queen, one goes from the critics to the music…”

Britten could give as well as take, saying of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, "I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music."

December 07, 2024 19:30   ·   Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
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