The live electronics are all coming from the sounds of the taonga puoro, they’re not coming from the orchestra at all, it’s like a large echo chamber of those beautiful sounds of the traditional instruments that resonate throughout the piece. What’s really excited me is bringing the live electronics into the equation as well. I’ll confess it’s not without its problems. That was useful for korero, how you bring these worlds together. ![]() I’ve been on a couple of wananga festivals with Richard and more recently with Horomona Horo. I have done some work with Richard Nunns before using live electronics, but that was not in any official capacity, it was just a sort of jam session one night. Richard – Have you written for taonga puoro before? This piece is probably the most radical of my orchestral pieces in terms of how I’ve treated the orchestra, but by the standards of my other works, it’s moderately conventional. Because when you’re in a smaller space with fewer musicians it’s much easier to hear the effects, and some of those effects don’t scale up to the orchestra at all. I guess my chamber works probably deal a lot more with smaller scale timbral developments, using a lot of extended techniques and things like that. So writing for orchestra you really have to understand not only all the instruments you’re writing for and their limitations, but also the characteristics of the space you’re in. With orchestra the acoustics really change the equation, and I’ve heard over the years some contemporary orchestral works that I didn’t think worked because they were treated like a large chamber ensemble, to the point where it was hard to make out what was going on because the acoustics just blur everything. Michael – Chamber music is always a good testing ground for ideas but, at the same time, writing for a chamber ensemble and writing for orchestra are very different things. Is there a connective thread between those and the orchestral works you write? Richard – The music of yours that I know best is chamber or instrumental music. So I’m operating when the electronics do their processing and I’ve programmed that all in but you will still clearly hear the effects of it live. I have written a number of electronics systems that do respond but they’re not terribly reliable, and I think when you’re writing for the NZSO you want something that’s reliable. Richard – Are the electronics run by someone or is it programmed to respond on its own? ![]() Everything will be created in real time, so there are no pre-recorded elements at all. The piece I’ve written for NZSO will feature those electronics. That’s primarily working with instrumental sounds and processing them in real time. But more recently I’ve developed live electronic practice. Since then I’ve largely written for instruments. I did my Master’s in electronic music and realised at the end of sitting in a studio for a year that I needed some human company. I’m interested in writing for instruments, that’s the first thing. Michael Norris – Yes, it has gone through a lot of different interests over the years. To my ears there’s quite a range to your music. Richard Betts – I’m not sure how to explain what it is you do. The full interview is presented here for the first time. I caught up with Norris in June 2019 for the NZ Herald, ahead of the NZSO’s world premiere performance of Matauranga. They face off against three-time winner Michael Norris, whose Matauranga was written to commemorate 250 years of James Cook’s arrival in Aotearoa. Oram’s piece, a loose affiliation of alleluias, is a beautiful concerto for improvising violin and three voices, while Taylor has collaborated with visual artist Simon Ingram to produce Assemblage, an atmospheric work for orchestra and computerised painting machine. It’s a fascinating selection, featuring two of our leading young composers, Celeste Oram and Alex Taylor, who are both conducting doctoral work in the USA. SOUNZ, the Centre for New Zealand Music, has announced the three finalists for its annual SOUNZ Contemporary Award, the top honour for local classical composers. ![]() RICHARD BETTS chats with Michael Norris – a finalist in the SOUNZ Contemporary Award, whose work uses electronics along with the sound of a whale vertebra.
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