NZ composer Dame Gillian Whitehead debuts first violin concerto

"A piece doesn't come alive until it's performed," says composer Dame Gillian Whitehead. Photo / Gareth Watkins

To call Gillian Karawe Whitehead our most distinguished living composer isn't hyperbole, it's official. She is the only one to make the Arts Foundation's Icon list, essentially the Order of New Zealand for the arts. Like the ONZ, it's limited to 20 people at a time. Past and present recipients include Janet Frame, Albert Wendt and Ralph Hotere.

Whitehead (Ngāi Te Rangi) should be used to such accolades. She became Dame Gillian in 2009, yet the composer wears her title ambivalently.

"It never feels like me," she says, "it feels like someone over there."

There must be occasions, surely, when it's useful to take full advantage of her status.

"I do sometimes," she admits, voice dropping conspiratorially, "especially if I'm writing cross letters or something like that."

Whitehead's most recent piece of writing is not an angry missive from "Dame Gillian of Otago Peninsula" but Tai timu, tai pari – low tide, high tide – a violin concerto that has its debut on June 10 as part of Auckland Philharmonia's New Zealand Herald Premier Series. It's the first violin concerto of Whitehead's 60-year career.

"No one's ever asked me before," she says. It took a Canadian to get this new Kiwi work off the ground.

Since arriving from Montreal in 2014, when he took over as the APO's concertmaster, violinist Andrew Beer has been a quiet hero of New Zealand music. Beer is quiet about most things. He is self-effacing and not the slightest bit boastful but he has the matter-of-fact confidence of a musician who learnt his craft at two of the world's top music schools, the New England Conservatory and Juilliard, worked for one of North America's great orchestras – the Montreal Symphony – and knows he can play anything.

With his musical partner, the superb pianist Sarah Watkins, Beer claimed Best Classical Artist at the 2020 Aotearoa Music Awards, for the album 11 Frames. The disc comprised entirely New Zealand composers, including Whitehead, and several of the works were commissioned for the release.

"It's important that the leading performers play New Zealand music, because these are gifted composers," Beer says. "If I can try to lead by example, maybe more and more people will want to [perform New Zealand compositions]."

It perhaps helps that Beer is a relative newcomer with fresh ears. It also helps that Beer has standing within the music community, recognised as one of the best in his field, and can use that to guide others.

"I don't know how much sway I have but I can certainly keep commissioning new pieces, whether it's duos with Sarah or other forms."

Beer has more influence than he's admitting. When it came time to renegotiate his APO contract, he insisted on a clause requiring the orchestra to commission a New Zealand violin concerto for him.

Beer met with Ronan Tighe, the APO's then-director of artistic planning, to discuss the new work. Each was armed with a shortlist of three names, the composers they favoured to tackle the commission. Whitehead topped both lists.

"There's a real sense of nature and mysticism in her music," says Beer, attempting to encapsulate the composer's appeal. "I always get taken to some place or image."

Whitehead doesn't mention esoterica but she happily accepts that nature is present in Tai timu, tai pari.

"I live in a place where you're very aware of tides coming in and out, and the play of light on the water. Those things have influenced the piece. Often when I'm writing there seems to be bellbirds singing vociferously, and I was looking at the musical score this morning and I realised that a bellbird got into it. It's done it in a few pieces; it just won't let itself be left out."

Beer is in there too. Composer and violinist spent some time together, getting to know each other.

"He had some very helpful suggestions," says Whitehead, "but he didn't impose any ideas. It was a very good working relationship."

Beer: "It's all Gillian Whitehead music but she was really conscientious about being collaborative and trying to write something maybe in my style as well. I'm so grateful for that."

Gillian Whitehead. Photo / Gareth Watkins

Tai timu, tai pari was originally scheduled for 2021, the year of Whitehead's 80th birthday, but, well, you know. The violinist says the delay has made him think about the music differently – "It's been nice to let it marinate" – and he is excited finally to be playing it. He should be, it's tailor-made for him, the notes and mood hand-stitched to fit his personality, his gift.

Whitehead offers a slightly different perspective.

"It's the orchestra's piece and it's Andrew's piece and it's my piece, but it's also how an audience reacts. A piece doesn't come alive until it's performed." She pauses for a moment. "I just write the best piece I can," says Whitehead, our most distinguished living composer, finally. "I draw on craft and imagination and sort of stand back and see what comes out."

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra perform Ebb & Flow at Auckland Town Hall on Friday, June 10. apo.co.nz