KEY POINTS:
Who: Composer and classical music producer Wayne Laird.
On disc: Robert Costin, Liszt and Reubke Organ Works (ACD 307). Inia Te Wiata, Just Call Me Happy (ACD 507). Gillian Whitehead, Puhake Ki Te Rangi (ACD 107). All through Ode Records.
In concert: Organist Robert Costin.
Where and when: Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sat, July 26, 2pm.
Wayne Laird is on the giant computer-editor when I visit him, juggling levels as the Dominion Quartet play Alfred Hill. There is a surge of emotion in the slow movement and he loves the soulful violin of Yuri Gezentsvey.
While Naxos Records calls on Laird's studio expertise for this and other projects, he also runs his own label. Laird's Atoll Records has clocked up over 60 releases, from the quirky instrumental menagerie of Philip Dadson and Eve de Castro-Robinson's orchestral canvases to historic recordings from Inia Te Wiata and the Maori Battalion.
"I had access to sophisticated digital technology and the idea you could make recordings here as well as anywhere in the world," is Laird's justification. "I thought that this would give our musicians a great advantage."
His background is as diverse as his catalogue, going back to Avondale College in the 1960s when classical music was always "something that came from overseas".
"The school had an atmosphere where you felt there was always the threat of dire punishments," Laird remembers. "And, although it was co-ed, you never talked to a girl. The saving grace was a good music department."
Laird gravitated towards percussion, eventually studying at the prestigious Cleveland Institute of Music ["symphonic to a fault"] and in New York with the Metropolitan Opera's principal timpanist.
Joining the ensemble From Scratch in the 1980s, alongside Philip Dadson, Geoff Chapple and Don McGlashan, got him "out of this classical thing".
A From Scratch session is one of many projects stacked around his Herne Bay studio, but in the meantime he is preoccupied with a set of recordings by Richard Farrell, marking the 50th anniversary of the New Zealand pianist's death.
While working on Farrell, Laird was struck by the space in his music. "I've been alongside technicians who usually do rock 'n' roll records and we sat there mesmerised by this playing that seems to have all the time in the world."
The Farrell discs are due for October release, but Robert Costin's earth-shattering account of the great Reubke Organ Sonata on the Wellington Town Hall organ is already in shops. Better still, in a fortnight, Aucklanders can hear the English organist deliver it live.
Costin's ultimate aim is to capture all the great organs of New Zealand on CD, says Laird. "He gets on a plane in London and comes here to record on the Wellington Town Hall Organ."
It was a challenge for player and producer. "Anyone who owns microphones wants to put them in front of an organ," Laird laughs. "It's such a sonic thrill with that bottom end, and the frequency range is unbelievable."
But Reubke's Sonata is not all raging hyper-dynamics; Costin also colours some passages so delicately they could vanish without trace on a car stereo. Laird is philosophical about it. "As a producer, you have to commit on whether it's going to be played on the road or at home on a fantastic stereo system. You can't produce the same item for both. It's not very democratic but we have gone for the latter."
I ask for a favourite. He demurs, but Gillian Whitehead's Puhake Ki Te Rangi, featuring the New Zealand String Quartet and Richard Nunns, is obviously close to his heart. "Gillian has a unique voice and the music is all so cleverly composed ... and what fantastic sidesmen," he exclaims.
