Burning the Calories

John writes: “When NZTrio asked for a short ‘high impact, dynamic, edgy’ kind of piece, I immediately thought of one in which the physical gestures of the performers would be exploited. The performers would burn more calories than  usual.

In the gym that I attend, the participants begin with warm-up exercises followed by the more vigorous activities of rowing, cycling and walking. I decided to use these activities to shape my piece. Thus the form of ‘Burning the Calories’ has 5 sections; a ‘warm-up’ followed by 3 ‘burn’ sections where the violin, piano and cello take turns to be prominent and a ‘warm-down.”

Commissioned by NZTrio with funding from Creative New Zealand.