Miguel Harth-Bedoya looks forward to conducting his friend's music

By WILLIAM DART

"Very natural, very easy going, very direct and a very warm person," is how Miguel Harth-Bedoya describes his friend, the Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, who just happens to be one of the hottest new voices in the music world today.

And Auckland will hear that singular voice when Harth-Bedoya conducts the Auckland Philharmonia tomorrow in two of the composer's works, Last Round for string orchestra and Three Songs for soprano and orchestra.

I've always felt the easiest introduction to Golijov can be found on the Kronos Quartet's Caravan CD, where he contributes provocative arrangements of everything from gypsy songs to a surf rock classic by Dick Dale.

Harth-Bedoya agrees: "It was through his collaborations with Kronos and the St Lawrence String Quartet that he learned how to explore the whole world of string writing. Caravan was wonderful in the way it treated all that music from the Middle East."

Born in 1960, Golijov's background is unusual. He was an Eastern European Jew brought up in Argentina - he describes himself as a "Jewish gaucho" - now is settled in the United States.

Many strands run through his music, and the St Lawrence String Quartet's town hall performance of his Yiddishbbuk last year unravelled a few.

We were warned by the quartet's violinist that this music might "hit hard" if we weren't ready for it. As Harth-Bedoya points out, "This message is a direct one - there's not much wandering about.

"Osvaldo tends to write simply, so you can get the point. Sometimes when a composer writes a lot, the audiences aren't able to appreciate it all."

Harth-Bedoya is proud he has taken Last Round to Oregon, Los Angeles and Boston and it is programmed for his other "home orchestra" in Fort Worth next February.

He stresses the piece's South American connection is a tribute to the great tango master, Astor Piazzolla, "recreating the action of an accordion. It compresses and expands inwards and outwards, caught in between the two orchestras on stage".

The word "unique" keeps crossing through our conversation and Harth-Bedoya regards Golijov's music as just that. "What I like about it is that nothing gets repeated, nothing sounds like anything else.

"There seems a unique message and language for every work he writes. And it means he has so many commissions he can take what he chooses."

The latest is a soundtrack for a new Francis Ford Coppola film, Megalopolis. There are movie connections for Thursday night's other work. The first of Golijov's Three Songs is an arrangement of a Yiddish lullaby Golijov wrote for Sally Potter's 2000 film, The Man Who Cried, a piece of arthouse cinema with mainstream stars (Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci) that was seen by far too few people.

The songs, which also include a Spanish solo from Golijov's sensational St Mark Passion and a minimalist-tinged setting of Emily Dickinson, work so well, says Harth-Bedoya "because Osvaldo writes so beautifully for the voice.

"This composer can make the voice sing. Many composers don't, but Osvaldo writes so naturally the words have just the right flow to them".

The conductor is happy to have the ideal singer tomorrow night in Patricia Wright who, he says, is the second person, after Dawn Upshaw, to perform this work.

"I like the way in which Patricia always uses such a beautiful voice to highlight the meaning of the words. We have done Strauss together, and I have also heard her in Verdi.

"Some singers can be caged within a handful of pieces, and a couple [of languages], if not one language. Patricia is certainly not one of those."

Performance

* What: Auckland Philharmonia, conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, with Natalia Lomeiko

* Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow 8pm