Sounz Result

Sounz Result

Robin Toan will be asking the Manakau City Symphony Orchestra players to do more than blow, bow and strike their instruments as a result of being awarded the 2006 SOUNZ Community Commission.

The young New Zealand composer will also be asking the players to chant and sing as part of the fanfare she will compose for the orchestra.

“We expect this to be a unique and explosive work that explores Maori/Pacific rhythms and sounds – the spirit of Manakau City”, orchestra manager Pauline Logger-de Roos explains. “It will include improvisational elements which will require the orchestra not only to play, but also to use their voices. Robin is an active member of the music community in Manakau City, as teacher, performer and composer, and we will look forward to her spending time with the players in workshops and rehearsals leading up to the performance.”

Robin is emerging as one of New Zealand’s most promising young composers. She graduated from Auckland University with a Bachelors degree in composition and clarinet performance and currently working towards a Masters in Composition with John Psathas at the New Zealand School of Music, Wellington. She was the inaugural composer in residence for the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2005, and winner of numerous composition awards and prizes including the 2005 APRA $10,000 Professional Development Award.

The SOUNZ Community Commission is made possible through the generosity of an overseas donor who prefers to remain anonymous. The commission of $1500, administered by SOUNZ: the Centre for New Zealand Music, enables a community group and professional composer to collaborate in the creation and performance of a new work. Previous projects have included Jonathan Besser’s New Dawn for the 2000 Millennium Parade in Gisborne, Helen Bowater’s Hu for massed recorders and gamelan at the NZ Recorder Convention held in Christchurch 2002, and Ross Carey’s Come Together, a choral work written in Braille as well as normal notation for the Homai Campus National Music Course Choir and premiered in July this year.

“It is always exciting to see the range of creative collaborations represented in the proposals each year,” Scilla Askew, executive director of SOUNZ comments. “The SOUNZ Community Commission is all about bringing professional composers and community musicians together. Not only do both these parties benefit in the process, but also, when the result is performed, the audience get to share in the energy and vitality that is engendered in the commissioning of new music.”

It is anticipated that Robin Toan’s fanfare will be premiered by the Manakau City Symphony in mid-2007.

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Background Information:

sounz Community Commission
The SOUNZ Community Commission is sponsored by an anonymous donor and administered through SOUNZ. The commission encourages community groups to work closely with a professional composer. Each year - usually in March or April - proposals are accepted from either community groups or composers for musical projects that will see them working in creative partnership. The successful proposal is to be completed by the following May. By then a performance of the result will either have taken place or be planned.

Previous SOUNZ Community Commission partnerships:
1999: Jonathan Besser wrote New Dawn for the Millennium Parade in Gisborne
2000: Leonie Holmes wrote Invocation - a choral fanfare for South Auckland Choral Society's 25th anniversary
2001: Helen Bowater wrote Hu - a work for massed recorders and gamelan for the NZ Recorder Conference in Christchurch
2002: Steve Gallagher who wrote incidental music for Motormouth - a play for school children produced by Capital E, Wellington
2003: Jeff Henderson - to work with senior instrumental students at the Auckland Academy of Music to create an improvised work for (09)03 Festival of Contemporary Music
2004: Rachel Clement who wrote Taking Off as an anthem for the 2005 Festival of Colour in Wanaka.
2005: Ross Carey: Coming Together for choir, viola and piano performed by the Homai National School for the Blind and Visually Impaired Music Course Choir.

sounz : The Centre for New Zealand Music
Vision Statement
SOUNZ: created in New Zealand, heard around the world!
Toi Te Arapuoru – tipua i Aotearoa, rangona e te ao!

Statement of Purpose
To provide, foster and promote music by New Zealand composers to enhance the mana of all New Zealanders and our sense of turangawaewae. This is achieved through services and projects which:
• encourage the creation, performance, publication, recording and broadcast of music by New Zealand composers
• ensure a comprehensive collection of information and music resources are developed and maintained and made available for loan, perusal and purchase
• embrace the roles of advocate, facilitator and partner in national and international contexts.

The Centre is a not-for-profit organization which is registered as a charitable trust.

SOUNZ maintains an on-line searchable database of composers and their works [www.sounz.org.nz], a library as well as retail and information services representing the largest accessible collection of music by New Zealand composers in the world.

SOUNZ acknowledges operational funding from Creative New Zealand, APRA [Australasian Performing Right Association] and PPNZ [Phonographic Performances NZ Ltd.]

The Centre is a member of the International Association of Music Information Centres (IAMIC) which is a member of the International Music Council under the umbrella of UNESCO.

For further information or photos, please contact:

Stephen Gibbs
Development and marketing coordinator
SOUNZ: the Centre for NZ Music
development@sounz.org.nz

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