A musical coming of age

By WILLIAM DART

Forget Savage Honeymoon. Waitakere City is no cultural desert. Its Going West Books and Writers Festival is an established event on the literary calendar. In the visual arts, Lopdell Gallery features some of the best art in town, and the new Corban Estate Arts Centre is a role model for others.

Brigid Ursula Bisley won't be content until her Waitakere City Orchestra is making a similar contribution to its community, and is looking forward to the orchestra's first public concert on Saturday.

The WCO is a pet project of Bisley's. The 42-year-old has built a secure reputation as a composer with something to say - her song cycle, Come Back Safely, was one of the revelations of Wellington's Composing Women Festival in 1999 - but she has never been able to resist the lure of the baton.

"Composing is so isolating and reclusive," she says. "I've always loved performing."

Inspired and trained by the late Eliano Mattiozzi-Petralia, an Italian conductor who made his mark on several Auckland operatic productions in the 90s, Bisley finds conducting has its own creative rewards.

"I love the feeling that I'm sculpting sounds and colour, moving my hands in the air as if I'm actually forming something. I find the whole thing quite euphoric. It's a bit like having the best seat in the house - you're surrounded by this sea of sound and you're able to mould it as you want to."

With the encouragement of colleagues such as Gary Daverne and Uwe Grodd, she decided to "get up and do it, and start my own orchestra".

Support came from the Creative Communities scheme and a generous grant from the Portage Licensing Trust.

"After all, it's a huge area that we cover, all the way out to the west coast beaches. Ted Scott took our promotional pictures at the Karekare waterfall. Afterwards, we made music. A lot of locals turned up and they loved it. This sort of feedback is the reason I stayed with the project. There has been so much encouragement. I feel there is fertile ground here."

The WCO counts MP Jonathan Hunt and Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey as patrons. Harvey turned up for the orchestra's March launch, "with a minute to spare after competing in the Laingholm Raft Race.

"He was very excited about the whole thing and commented how having an orchestra in Waitakere City meant the city was coming of age."

Bisley is sure Saturday night's programme will appeal to a range of tastes, running from a Bach Brandenburg Concerto to Sibelius' Karelia Suite. Two talented teenagers, Siobhan Thompson and Jenny Chen, take the solos in a Corelli Concerto Grosso, and Bisley says one of her priorities is to give opportunities to young players.

There's opera too, with Paul Chappory and Anne Cheng offering brackets of arias, and local identity Sasha Witten-Hannah playing guitar for Chappory when the tenor tackles the Serenade from Rossini's Barber of Seville.

It is early days for the WCO, but Bisley would like to see the commissioning of New Zealand composers, smaller chamber music concerts and even "some kind of cross-fertilisation with the Waitakere Trust's Brass".

"I think in West Auckland we're a bit fed up with the old westie cliche that we all wear beanies, drive Holdens and have four dogs in the back," says Bisley.

"We have an interesting, mixed and flamboyant community with an established intelligentsia, a developing film industry and a proactive business community."

It's a mix that seems ready-made for the Waitakere City Orchestra.

Performance

* What: Waitakere City Orchestra

* Where & when: Glen Eden Playhouse, 15 Glendale Rd, Glen Eden, Saturday 7.30pm