“COMPOSING NOW”

Auckland, 12-13 April 2014

In April 2014 the Composers Association of New Zealand convened a two day conference for the presentation of papers covering a wide range of topics under the heading “Composing Now”.

The Centre for New Zealand Music’s Resound project was filming at the conference and a selection of presentations is gathered together on this page. The papers provide a fascinating snapshot of musical thought in Aotearoa in 2014.

Dorothy Ker: Locating Space (keynote presentation)

John Coulter: Composing with Sound: An Analytical Approach

Eve de Castro-Robinson: Stocktake

Reuben Derrick: Between the referential and the abstract: soundscapes as musical systems

Chris Gendall: On Rhythmic Shape in Recent New Zealand Composition

Featuring rhythmic analysis of works by John Psathas, Chris Watson and Jeroen Speak

Blas González: New Directions in Post-Tonal Music

Featuring analysis of works by Alex Taylor, Jack Body, Jenny McLeod and Sudharsan Sivaramakrishnadas

Leonie Holmes: “I don’t do pulse”

Glenda Keam: What do we think we’re doing when we are composing?

Rachael Morgan: An analysis of Interiors for string quartet and the influence of Scelsi’s sonorist aesthetic

Michael Norris: ‘Set a silence to catch a silence’: Harmonic coherence and symmetry in Lilburn’s Nine Short Pieces for Piano

Jason Post: A rift in the thing: traversing perceptual and theoretical sound objects in contemporary New Zealand composition

With analysis of works by Philip Brownlee and Samuel Holloway

Anthony Ritchie: The Large Canvas: the Symphony in Contemporary New Zealand Music

Alex Taylor: Watson’s Third Quartet and its Resonances for Contemporary Practice

Louise Webster: “Can we have a nice tune please?”