KEY POINTS:
When you're in a band, size matters. Even big, loud live acts are befriending orchestras to help them realise their songs in the grandest way possible.
Shapeshifter and Goldenhorse have done it - so have Nathan Haines and Bic Runga. The latest popular Kiwis to jump on the big-band wagon are Salmonella Dub and Evermore.
The 'Dub will play a special gig with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra tomorrow, as part of a national tour called Feel the Seasons Change, "an audio-visual journey through Aotearoa that weaves the ancient and modern worlds together".
Jazz and soul singer Whirimako Black will fill in for former frontman Tiki Taane, joining the band to sing For the Love Of It in te reo, Richard Nunns will perform on taonga puoro (traditional Maori instruments), and Paddy Free, a long-time friend of the band and member of Pitch Black, will provide the musical links.
The unlikely supergroup will be accompanied by imagery that will tell the story of our land and culture, incorporating the 'Dub's own footage of the Kaikoura coastline and beyond. The orchestra will also help to flesh out songs from the band's new album, Heal Me.
Tom Rainey, who has worked on 10 arrangements with band guitarist Andrew Penman for the past six months, says the brass and string sections in particular add a lot of power to the songs.
"The basis of a lot of their music has a lot of brass in it. The power of the brass in that situation is great. The challenge is to add something but not to sound too orchestral because this is popular music - if the flavour becomes too classical, it can give you a stylistic lurch.
"You don't want to get in the way of that strong, rhythmic basis that roots and dub music has which is obviously very guitar and bass-guitar-influenced. Sometimes we've included the string section plucking in a type of guitar-skanking-type thing, the heavy off-beat. We've used the strings in a percussive way."
Two weeks later, Evermore will be special guests with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra for the Mazda Summer Matinee concert (also featuring bass singer Conal Coad).
The Feilding lads, best known for their chart-topping hits including Light Surrounding Me and their Silver Scroll-winning It's Too Late, will join the APO for a relaxed outdoor affair at the Villa Maria Estate in Mangere.
"Orchestras are such dramatically wonderful ensembles," says composer and arranger Gareth Farr, who is still working on the arrangements.
"It's partially a visual thing. It's stage performance. Fortunately I'm working with songs written by really, really good songwriters. In Light Surrounding You, they have almost an orchestral way of writing for their band. They are really big songs but there's a lot of contrast. The opening of Light Surrounding You is this tiny little intimate, delicate thing and it slowly builds from there and halfway just completely disappears again. Then it kicks in and gets bigger and bigger and that's exactly how I would approach writing an orchestral piece. It's all about contrast and ups and downs and really light delicate things and then really full-on heavy things. It's all there."
LOWDOWN
What: Salmonella Dub and the NZSO's Feel the Seasons Change concert.
Where and when: ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, tomorrow. Tickets at Ticketek.
What: Evermore with the APO for the Mazda Summer Matinee
Where and when: Villa Maria Estate, Mangere, February 16. The orchestra will also perform a range of classical pieces by (among others) Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. Tickets from www.apo.co.nz
