Lyre

Victoria Kelly is an award-winning composer, performer and producer, based in Aotearoa New Zealand.  She works across a spectrum of musical genres including contemporary classical, film and popular music. Her work has been commissioned, performed and recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Auckland Philharmonia, NZTrio, the New Zealand String Quartet, Stroma, Michael Houstoun and Stephen de Pledge.

As an arranger and performer she has collaborated with a wide range of artists including Neil Finn, Tami Neilson, Finn Andrews / The Veils, Don McGlashan, Anika Moa, SJD, Moana Maniapoto, and Shapeshifter. As a film composer she has written music for films by Sir Peter Jackson (The Lovely Bones), Robert Sarkies (Out of the Blue) and Jonathan King (Black Sheep / Under the Mountain) among others.

In 2011 Victoria was the Music Director for the Rugby World Cup Opening Ceremony – broadcast live to more than 1 billion people around the world.

About this work Victoria writes: “My grandmother, Kitte Andreasen, was born in the Faroe Islands – a tiny basalt archipelago that nestles in the vast expanse of the North Atlantic ocean – halfway between Iceland and Norway, 18,000 kms away from Aotearoa. Kitte migrated to New Zealand with her mother and siblings in the early 1920’s, after her father – a decorated Faroese sea captain and member of parliament – was lost at sea. Our written Faroese family tree goes back to the 1500’s, although our lineage most likely extends back much further, to when the islands were first settled by Vikings and Norse Irish people in c.900 AD.

The Faroes are astonishing in their beauty and strangeness. I travelled there with my family in 2019. Their isolation is tangible, like a tone in the air. Because of their extreme climate, the islands have no trees. They are frequently bathed in dense fog which appears and disappears with miraculous speed, as if inhaled and exhaled by the sea.

In Greek mythology, Sirens lured sailors to their deaths – singing to them from islands (said to be the Sirenusas off the Amalfi coast). Sirens are often depicted in sculptures and paintings playing lyres. 

Lyres are also present in the folk traditions of Norway (the Kraviklyra), Iceland (the Langspil) and the Shetland Islands (the Gue) – the nearest bodies of land to the Faroes – as are dulcimers and bowed stringed instruments (the Hardanger).

In this piece I explore the lure of islands, and the promises and dangers they hold. I imagine the sea as a colossal lyre accompanying their voices, connecting them across vast distances – giving, claiming and transforming life, offering visions of possibility that may or may not materialise. The horizon is always in view, with more islands beyond sight.

The piece quotes a traditional Faroese hymn (Kingosangur) – Jeg Stod Mig Op En Morgenstund / I Got Up One Morning. It also explores elements of Scandinavian folk music. 

The music evokes the hypnotic rhythm of waves; the illusion of the horizon; the angularity and starkness of the Faroe islands; the rich colours of the surrounding seas; the hope of a new life and the longing for an old one; and the ways in which places (and the journeys towards those places) shape people and identity.

Lyre was commissioned by NZTrio with support from an anonymous patron, as a birthday gift for a man of the sea.”

Toi Huarewa / The Suspended Way 

A way to reach the highest level of heaven – sometimes described as a web that hangs down from the heavens, sometimes described as a whirlwind path.

Victoria writes: “When I began writing this piece, I wanted to create a musical world where Maori and Western musical traditions could communicate in the same language.

The Taonga Puoro form part of an aural tradition that is deeply entwined with Maori culture and absolutely unique to the Maori people. Western music, on the other hand, has evolved into a written tradition that encompasses the collision, intersection and evolution of many cultures. In this way, the two traditions couldn’t be more different.

To unite these two distinct voices, I decided to create a myth to act as a musical form. Maori mythology is fundamental to the Taonga Puoro and many other mythologies exist at the ancient heart of Western art – so this felt like a natural starting point.

Every instrument of the Taonga Puoro has a spiritual guardian (Kaitiaki) and a complex ancestral lineage (Whakapapa). The Kaitiaki are the Atua (Gods) of the materials from which the instruments are made. The Whakapapa of the instruments are made up of: the Atua and their descendants, the performers and their ancestors, the instrument makers and their ancestors, the places where the materials for the instruments originated, the materials themselves, the elements through which they’ve passed in all their various forms. Their tikanga is a beautiful interweaving of spirituality and science.

As I’ve explored this idea, I’ve come to imagine whakapapa as a virtually infinite series of pathways that lead everyone and everything back to the place where we all began – and the Taonga Puoro as voices that can communicate along these pathways, transcending time and space to connect us to our origins.

The concepts of guardianship and ancestry also apply to the instruments of the Piano Trio, who can find their own Kaitiaki amongst the Atua of the materials from which theyʼre made – whether those guardians and ancestors are from Aotearoa, or the many other places from which Western culture is derived. They too give voices to their ancestors and connect us to our origins and each other.

As this piece has evolved and I’ve collaborated with Horomona, Tim and the Trio – who have all been so generous with their knowledge – other themes have revealed themselves and become fundamental to the music. The most important of these are concepts of transformation, transition and illumination.

In Te Ao Māori, there is a state that exists between life and death, earth and sky, light and dark. It’s the point where the spiritual and physical worlds intersect. I’ve drawn my own, personal comparisons between this idea and some of the beautiful theories, about parallel universes and multiple dimensions, that occupy the minds of physicists.

These kinds of spaces are where I imagine the mythological Toi Huarewa to manifest, places full of mystery and wonder that all of us, regardless of our culture, seek to access or understand in our own ways.”

Composed in collaboration with Horomona Horo, NZTrio and Tim Worrall.

Click here to read about the collaborative process on Victoria’s Blog.

Click here to watch a short documentary about Toi Huarewa.