Fancy a game of musical volleyball?

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Fancy a game of musical volleyball?

Or ever wondered what birds convening on telephone wires might sound like if you read them like sheet music?

The Wellington Most Famous Orchestra of Miraculous Delights creates music which might be described as intriguing, eccentric, even zany from such diverse visual ‘scores’ as pictures from cook books, street signs at a busy Wellington intersection, or splodges of chewing gum on a footpath in Newtown. The improvising orchestra and composer Rosie Langabeer, supported by a SOUNZ Community Commission, will present a free concert of some of their favourites at 3pm on Sunday, 6 December at Te Marae, Te Papa, Wellington.  

“The concert is best described as ‘music for alternative notation systems based on the visual aspect of Wellington City’,” Langabeer explains. “Improvisation is the most ancient of all music techniques. The ‘orchestra’ consists of community musicians with a range of instruments including vocalists and an accordionist to electric guitar, tuba and homemade instruments, and the SOUNZ Community Commission has enabled us to develop new methods for making music from this unusual combination”

"Our interpretation of the score is improvised, so no two performances will ever be quite the same," Langabeer continues. “Similar ideas tend to emerge however because of the layout and look of the 'score' and the piece does have a coherent overall shape. Some pieces involve the entire 'orchestra' - others are for duets or small groups. Sometimes two of us will play a musical interpretation of tennis, or with more on each 'team' perhaps volleyball,  with 'serves' and 'returns' and 'backhands' and 'aces'.”

We believe that an MC, rather than an umpire, will be on hand to offer some explanation of the pieces at this unique concert!

The event will be a 10th 'birthday' celebration of the SOUNZ Community Commission, a project of SOUNZ, the Centre for New Zealand Music. Scilla Askew, Executive Director of SOUNZ comments: “For a decade now, the SOUNZ Community Commission, funded by an overseas donor who prefers to remain anonymous, has brought 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.”

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