KEY POINTS:
No man is an island, as the poet John Donne once wrote, and nor should music be limited by category or geography. Such is the philosophy of Chamber Music New Zealand, whose Encompass concerts place musicians from Korea and Soweto alongside more traditional string quartet and piano trio fare.
On Tuesday, the series focuses on the local with Tuhonohono, marking Matariki, the Maori New Year, with a selection of chamber music by Gillian Whitehead.
Whitehead, one of our senior composers, is fondly remembered in Auckland for two breathtaking Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra commissions when she was resident composer here (The Improbable Ordered Dance in 2000 and Alice in 2001); last year her Karohirohi was a glimmering showcase for harpist Carolyn Mills and the NZSO.
The concept of Tuhonohono is close to Whitehead's heart. "It's supporting, joining together, weaving the ideas of Maoritanga with a European background using a variety of performers," she says.
The Tuhonohono team is an all-star contemporary ensemble - flautist Ingrid Culliford and bassoonist Ben Hoadley join pianist Emma Sayers and cellist Ashley Brown. Ramonda Te Maiharoa-Taleni handles vocals, and the unique sounds of the Maori traditional instruments, or taonga puoro, are provided by Richard Nunns.
These taonga puoro caught Whitehead's imagination when she heard Nunns in the late 80s. "There is something atavistic about them," she explains, "something that goes right back, speaking of worlds that were part of one's past.
"It's terribly hard to say what it is about them without sounding new-agey," she laughs, "which I don't think it is."
She talks of how they evoke birdsong, and on Tuesday you can hear the korimako, or bellbird, chiming over the sand-flats in her piano piece Arapatiki. The Journey of Matuku Moana for solo cello, written during the composer's successful cancer treatment in 1992, was inspired by the white-faced heron of its title and also admits the korimako into the closing minutes of its soundscape.
Te Maiharoa-Taleni sings the opening aria from Whitehead's 1998 opera Outrageous Fortune, a waiata that has travelled the world. "It has even been done in Russia," Whitehead says proudly. "Apparently they were blown away by it and someone described it as shamanistic."
Whitehead's sensitivity in writing for two cultures is unrivalled and she has not forgotten her European heritage.
"It's hard not to have Bach in the background when you are writing for solo cello. I grew up with the world of Bach and Mozart and you don't need to leave it behind."
Shadows of composers, from Debussy to Puccini, hover over this music, side by side with echoes of waiata and evocations of landscape. In the magical Tauhara, for flute and piano, Pakeha and Maori worlds are in the closest of communions.
Nunns' taonga puoro are central to four of the seven works and have enabled a new freedom for the composer through "the immediacy of their sound, coming from the player through the instrument, with no notated tradition.
"Now, when I write there are lots of signposts given, but detail will change along the way, meaning that ephemeral but wonderful things can happen."
PERFORMANCE
What: Tuhonohono, with works by Gillian Whitehead
Where and when: Town Hall Concert Chamber, Tues June 19, 8pm
