Sarah Shieff: Talking Music: Conversations With New Zealand Musicians

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON


Anyone with an interest in New Zealand's classical music will find this collection of interviews with 14 of our top composers and musicians, together with a CD of related music by each artist, an invaluable and fascinating resource.

Together, they span 60 years of musical history, and reveal how the very talented - and the very determined - go about making opportunities for themselves in their chosen, demanding fields - no mean feat in mid-20th century New Zealand, as some of the older ones know well.

Dorothea Franchi, for instance, considers herself "a pioneer": she studied overseas but in 1950 returned to Auckland where she now says, "We were not well done by as composers".

Edwin Carr, on the other hand, left New Zealand in 1948, only returning in 1984, and still regards Europe as his spiritual home; Malvina Major manages an international career while still basing herself in Christchurch.

The interviews encapsulate the lives lived, but also the passion that defines these people, and out of them we glean something of the story of New Zealand music itself.

(AUP $49.95)