Passing: Asia Pacific Festival 2007 - CD

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These orchestral works by Australian and New Zealand composers were first heard in a feature concert at the Asia Pacific Festival presented by the Asian Composers' League (ACL) in Wellington in February 2007. Now released on CD by Atoll and Move Records of Melbourne, they can be heard by more than the audience at that concert.

Artistic Director, Jack Body notes, "This sampling of Australian and New Zealand orchestral music was a way of presenting ourselves, the non-Asian members of ACL, to the many Asian guests at the festival. We heard Asian resonances in Helen Bowater’s gamelan-inspired New Year Fanfare, in Barry Conningham's moving tribute to Toru Takemitsu (Passing), and in Julian Yu's exquisite Future of Water. Gerard Brophy's Republic of Dreams, with its intriguing modal melody suggested Middle Eastern models. Sophisticated responses to environment we heard in Chris Cree Brown’s Antarctic-inspired Icescape, and in Leonie Holmes’ Frond , whose curving shape suggested the Maori koru motive. Youthful aspirations made their point in Chris Gendall’s So It Goes, in Samuel Holloway’s Fault, and in the startling orchestration (and title!) of Mark Zadro’s Promiscuous. This was a program that both entertained and illuminated – which is what every concert should aim to do, surely?"

Move and Atoll gratefully acknowledge the funding contributions of the Australia Council, Lilburn Trust, Turnovsky Endowment Trust, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Music Centre.