The bar-tailed godwits are the star of a new work for choir and guitar to be performed in Palmerston North on Saturday. Photo / Robert Gibb
The bar-tailed godwits are the star of a new work for choir and guitar to be performed in Palmerston North on Saturday. Photo / Robert Gibb
Far out! Bar-tailed godwits, which can be seen at the Manawatū Estuary in summer, fly non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand.
Palmerston North choir Renaissance Singers commissioned poet Anne French to write a song cycle about the godwits’ amazing journey to be set to music by composer Anthony Ritchie.
The result will be performed in Palmerston North on Saturday.
Accompanying the choir will be Matthew Marshall, one of New Zealand’s top classical guitarists, and a nine-strong guitar ensemble of teenager and adult students led by teacher Jeanette McGrath.
Renaissance Singers music director Christine Archer-Lockwood said there had never been a New Zealand composition written for this type of ensemble.
She felt a “bubble of excitement” while having a Zoom call with poet, composer and bird watcher and realising they are on the same page.
While local government boundaries mean Manawatū Estuary and Foxton Beach are officially not part of Manawatū, Archer-Lockwood offers an emotional view.
“It feels like it’s the other arm, it’s the beach part of Palmy. It’s our beach.”
Classical guitarist Matthew Marshall has recently returned to New Zealand after three years as Professor of Music and Dean of Arts at Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur.
In preparation for the lyrics, French and choir president Robert Gibb attended the Manawatū Estuary Trust’s spring welcome to the godwits, consulted Te Kenehi Teira from Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga about the place of kuaka (godwit) in their Māori lore and tradition, and Manu Kawana about the iwi’s use of karanga to welcome kuaka to their Manawatū home.
They also spoke with Massey University godwit researcher Dr Phil Battley about the latest data on godwit migration using GPS tracking, which has revealed the routes taken by godwits on their direct flight from Alaska to New Zealand.
The second New Zealand work is Ritchie’s Coverings, an exploration of renewal inspired by little blue penguins moulting and renewing their feathers.
While choir and classical guitar performances are well-loved overseas, every item in Saturday’s concert, Far Out! Godwits & Guitars, is being performed in New Zealand for the first time.
The international part of the programme transports the audience from James Joyce’s Ireland in Roberto Di Marino’s Tre Liriche to gypsy life in Spain with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Romancero Gitano.
Anthony Ritchie's new work Godwits will be performed in Palmerston North on Saturday.
Marshall and the choir will also perform David Conte’s arrangement of three Mexican folk songs and Jeffrey Van’s settings of Walt Whitman’s American Civil War poems.
Spanish is the language of classical guitar but is new to most of the Renaissance Singers, providing an enjoyable additional challenge. Bass Paul Lyons is fluent in Spanish.
