Ka maranga ngā kapua

Considered one of the most important composers in Australasia, Dame Gillian Whitehead’s vast collection of award-winning works includes operas, orchestral works, choral pieces, vocal and instrumental chamber compositions, solo works, pieces involving taonga puoro and improvisational work. After many years of overseas experience and global recognition, she became an inaugural Artist Laureate of the NZ Arts Foundation (2000) and a Distinguished Companion of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Order of Merit (2009).

She writes: “Ka maranga ngā kapua translates as ‘the clouds will lift’. There are three short pieces in the set, and the last two were written just after the whole of Aotearoa went into level 4 lockdown in August. The pieces reflect our changing perceptions through the juxtaposition of ideas or styles from different times.”

Commissioned in 2021 with funding from Creative New Zealand

Te waka o te rangi

Gillian writes: “Te waka o te rangi is a waka in the sky, whose prow is the constellation matariki, and whose stern is Tautoru, the belt of Orion. Every night the captain, the star Taramainuku, trawls with his net to collect the souls of the people who had died that day, and, when Matariki sets in May, takes them to the underworld. When Matariki rises again, the souls are released to the heavens as stars.

This is one of the stories that was in my mind when I was writing this piece, but there are others. For instance, Tawhirimatea, the god of winds, was so upset by the separation of his parents, Ranginui and Papatuanuku, that he tore out his eyes and threw them into the sky where they became the constellation Matariki, while Tawhirimatea thrashed blindly round the sky, unable to see.

The clarity or otherwise of the nine stars of Matariki predicts the quality of the forthcoming harvest. My piece responds to Horomona Horo’s waiata, for koauau ponga iho (gourd nose flute) which precedes it, and I have also quoted the refrain of a piece for solo voice (Matariki) which I wrote some time ago. the text roughly translates as:

People gather to prepare the land, preparing mounds for kumara planting.
It’s winter, the rainy season, pools lie everywhere. The small eyes of Matariki

The river flows on…

Gillian writes: “There is a Cambodian proverb  – ‘the rowing boat passes, the river bank remains’ – which to me suggests that isolated events in history, or in a person’s life, eventually pass, while history, or life itself, flows on.   Within the O Cambodia project, I wanted to present a narrative which moves on from the Khmer Rouge times into the future, moving from the hard times that affected every Cambodian who is now over 35 into a profoundly altered world.

The first section of the river flows on…  is Prophecy, which presents an ancient saying whose source is not remembered today. The second section, Sokha’s Story, tells the story of Sokha Mey, who currently lives and works in Wellington. She was a young girl living with her family in a small village near Siem Reap when Lon Nol’s forces were defeated, the war was over and the Khmer Rouge came to power. The final section, the river flows on….  brings Sokha’s story into the future, where she was ableto make a new life for herself in New Zealand.  

I would like to thank Niborom Young, Sokun Chiv and particularly Sokha Mey for their invaluable help.

Commissioned for the O CAMBODIA programme with funding from Creative New Zealand.

Piano Trio

Gillian writes: “The ideas behind the piece have to do with changing perspectives of patterns in water – in the bubbling of streams, the tumble of a waterfall, in the spiralling eddies where stream meets lake at sunrise. In the opening movement, a group of short themes and ideas initially form a mosaic-like section, which recurs in developed and varied forms around more reflective passages. The second movement reverses the first, in the sense that slow, sustained sections are interrupted by more energetic material, and the final movement draws all the previous ideas together.”

Commissioned by NZTrio, with funding from Creative New Zealand.