Future looks bright for city's alt music scene

By WILLIAM DART

(09)03 was one hectic weekend and curator Glenda Keam had most bases covered for a crash course in where alt music might be. Jeff Henderson led a morning improv session with young Aucklanders, and Phil Dadson and his colleagues rounded off the festival with John Zorn's Cobra. Rakinos hosted Saturday's Elektrakinos for a spot of late-night clubbing.

On Saturday morning, Ashley Brown launched the festival with a solo cello journey. From Kodaly onwards, the programme jelled. Brown's daggish commentary made quirky historical connections - in 2001 we had mad cow disease in Britain, the September 11 tragedy and Dylan Lardelli's Eidolon, a piece which revealed the young Wellington composer's hands-on knowledge of cello and guitar.

A few hours later, violinist Mark Menzies did his solo turn, ranging from the obsessional focusings of Norm Skipp's Screaming to the bold simplicity of Ross Carey's Autumn Leaves.

Saturday afternoon and Mahinarangi Tocker, the first of two nods to popular music, came up with startling jokes ("Have you heard the one about Maori on Prozac?") and raw songs that came and went in their intensity.

Goldenhorse brought mirror ball, pretty lights and slick charts to their afternoon concert; a workshop discussing the give-and-take (if any) that they allow could have been revealing.

There was talking, not all of it worthwhile. The low point was Joost Langeveld rambling on about the film Snakeskin, coming up with badly cued video clips that had minimal music, but expletives and violence by the yard. Michael Hurst's over-theatrical rendition of e.e. cummings' Epithalamion was simply a mistake.

A composers' panel was a mixed success. While an ill-prepared Jeff Henderson shuffled away through his 10 minutes, Chris Cree Brown fashioned a performance piece about PBRF horrors, a Q&A session with himself, recorded on a tape-recorder strung round his neck, while James Gardner bound him in red tape.

Australian composer Liza Lim spoke so engagingly sans script one wonders why she, and Englishman Richard Barrett, weren't presenting introductions to their music.

If so, Barrett's Transmission for electric guitar and electronics might have done more for me when it turned up in Elision's Sunday appearance. As it happened, the work was marred by technology problems, but most of this Australian concert was far too noisy and boysie.

The best was left till last. On Sunday night, 571 Moa Tasters revisited John Rimmer's 1983 De Aestibus Rerum with David Cox's horn soaring from the mix. Dylan Lardelli's prize-winning Four Fragments, moving from breathy whispers to confident chord-voicing, shared the same bracing colours we would hear in Varese's Octandre after interval.

On Monday morning, Stroma outlined the murmurings of bitter-sweet Araby in Liza Lim's The Heart's Ear, caught the sonic insinuations of Philip Brownlee's Sparks among the Geysers, and Helen Bowater's Banshee shivered, shrieked and sang with the sweetest of strings.

Jordan Reyne delivered Victoria Kelly's Song as a morning-after torch number, languishing in Manhire's evocative words, while Kelly's music suavely introduced Schumann to Ellington behind her.

The concert ended with Xenakis. His 1989 Echange toys with the concept of expectancy, players waited through much of Andrew Uren's stormy bass-clarinet workout until they could join in and celebrate the composer's renegade spirit with a rough and lusty march.

Fittingly, the final music came from 175 East, ranging from a translucent account of Liza Lim's Ming Qi to a collection of student compositions that had been successful in the group's annual KBB Competition.

Let's hope that among these youngsters there are some who will carry on the spirit and devotion of the many who made (09)03 happen.

* What: (09)03 Contemporary Music Festival

* Where: Dorothy Winstone Centre, Hopetoun Alpha