Opening ears to sounds from sharp end

By WILLIAM DART

Barry Douglas, the NZSO and Tosca are not providing the only music to tempt punters over Labour Weekend. At the other end of town, (09)03 is in residence at Hopetoun Alpha and the Auckland Girls' Grammar School's Dorothy Winstone Centre.

(09)03 is a cryptic moniker but Glenda Keam, organiser of the three-day celebration, sees it as "a name with potential and a recognisable brand with just the phone code and the year".

The (09) is important. She feels it is a shame that other multi-genre events such as the Composing Women's Festivals took place in the capital and "neither Aucklanders nor Wellingtonians really expected such an event to happen up here".

The low point came when she was turned down by our city's Arts Alive funders. The excuse? "We don't understand that kind of music."

(09)03 would certainly open their ears and, in essence, that's what it's all about. Keam talks of "breaking down unnecessary boundaries between different musical genres". More than once she cites the inspiration of Sonic Broom, a conference held in Wellington three years ago, very much the initiative of Sounz, the Centre for New Zealand Music.

The music world has rallied around the project. Sounz' Scilla Askew gets a special acknowledgment for the handsome (09)03 programme, Concert FM is recording some concerts for future broadcast while Creative New Zealand, the British Council and APRA have come up with dollars.

Keam was bitten by the contemporary music bug early on. As a child, she "always liked the weird pieces at the end of the piano exam books" and this interest, nurtured by teachers, blossomed during nine years in England, where she immersed herself in concerts, summer schools and festivals. Among the highlights she mentions catching the final performance of Peter Maxwell Davies' Fires of London and meeting Brian Ferneyhough in Finland.

Ferneyhough is just one of the many international, cutting-edge composers represented in the (09)03 concerts, and two - Englishman Richard Barrett and Australia's Liza Lim - are coming along to hear their music played.

"Cutting-edge" and "comfort zones" crop up a lot in our conversation. "Just how many cutting edges can you fit into one festival?" Keam muses at one point, and, for some, (09)03 promises to be a veritable House of Knives. She mentions Sunday's Elision concert as one in which comfort zones will be most challenged with "electric guitar and computer getting pushed to the limits".

The wildest thing, I am told, could well be Norman Skipp and Michael Hurst's contribution to Sunday's Soundscapes event. Skipp has scored the music, Hurst reads e.e. cummings' Epithalamion and "the whole thing is manipulated in real time".

Keam also promises a fun and possibly rowdy finale when Phil Dadson and nine colleagues play John Zorn's improv game Cobra.

On the lighter side, there's always Mahinarangi Tocker's Saturday afternoon turn or Goldenhorse, who have the challenge of living up to a programme note that describes them as "sensual and raw", at 2pm on Monday.

Three events are not to be missed: Sunday night's 517 Moa Tasters has Auckland's 175 East and Wellington's Stroma combine forces in a programme that runs from Varese's 1923 Octandre to Dylan Lardelli's prizewinning Four Fragments. And, on the following day, each ensemble has its own turn on stage.

In the final count, it is all about connections, and there are some unexpected ones here. If you, like me, jumped at a few of the musical stabs in Victoria Kelly's score for The Locals, you might put Stroma's Monday afternoon concert in your diary. The offerings show a more reflective side of Kelly, with Jordan Reyne singing some Bill Manhire settings by the composer.

Performance

* What: (09)03 Contemporary Music Festival

* When: October 25-27

* Where: Dorothy Winstone Centre, Auckland Girls' Grammar School; Hopetoun Alpha; see programme booklet

(09)03 website