Ask to use material, get more information or tell us about an item
Keeping you in tune with music and the arts, with David Morriss
KORNGOLD: Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen, from Die tote Stadt - Benson Wilson (bar), New Zealand SO (RNZ )
MENDELSSOHN: String Quartet No 4 in E minor Op 44/2 (2) - Emerson String Quartet (DG 477 5370)
MOZART: Violin Concerto No 5 in A K219, Turkish - Isabelle Faust (vln), Il Giardino Armonico/Giovanni Antonini (Harmonia Mundi HMC 90 2230-31)
WHITACRE: With a lily in your hand - Polyphony/Stephen Layton (Hyperion CDA67543)
BACH: French Suite No 6 in E BWV817 - Murray Perahia (pno) (DG 479 6565)
VARIOUS: Variations on an Elizabethan Theme - BBC SO/Jac van Steen (NMC D 062)
VARIOUS: Variations on a Russian Folk Song - Kuss Quartet (ONYX 4090)
LAURIDSEN: Les Chansons des Roses - Morten Lauridsen (pno), Polyphony/Stephen Layton (HYPERION CDA 67580)
MAHLER: Symphony No 9 in D (4) - Berlin Phil/Claudio Abbado (DG 471 624)
SCHUMANN: Introduction & Allegro appassionato Op 92 - Sviatoslav Richter (pno), English CO/Benjamin Britten (BBC LEGENDS BBCL 4196)
Noon
We announce the Lexus Song Quest semi-finalists for 2018 and classical music leaves cat feline good.
1pm The music behind kindness
Interactive online story book Oat the Goat teaches Kiwi kids about kindness, empathy, tolerance and acceptance. Behind the important message is a stunning soundscape composed by Tane UpJohn-Beatson and performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He explains the motivation behind the music.
2pm
Continuing our vocal theme for the week, we hear award winning British choir Polyphony perform Morten Lauridsen’s Les Chansons des Roses conducted by Stephen Layton.
Interactive online story book Oat the Goat teaches Kiwi kids about kindness, empathy, tolerance and acceptance.
Behind the important message is a stunning soundscape composed by Wellington-based Tane UpJohn-Beatson and performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra alongside taonga pūoro.
The performance was conducted by Hamish McKeich and recorded by RNZ’s Graham Kennedy.
The acclaimed composer - who has worked on films, game designs, theatre and art installations – was described by Weta’s Sir Richard Taylor as having skill at “weaving an emotional state and journey completely enthralled and amazed me”.
It’s that skill he’s applied to Oat the Goat, an initiative from the Ministry of Education, targeting four to seven year olds about bullying.
Tane drew on some of his own personal experiences. “[In] my childhood I was taught… to stand up to bullies; be aggressive and staunch, he says. “Here we are promoting behaviours from bystanders… [the] best thing you can do is diffuse it.”
He came onboard with the project after the animation had been completed, and had a short turnaround to create an adventurous soundscape. “The mere factor the music is there helps put us into the story,” he says.
Balancing the musical story with the visual can be a challenge. “When you write music you have to balance the idea of the emotional state …with the technicalities,” he says.
Each scene in which Oat the Goat (voiced by David Fane in English and Piripi Taylor in Te Reo) there is a different sound scape. Each helps push the narrative along, but Tane’s favourite is the action scene. “My favourite part is ‘Freefall and Capture’,” he says. “The theme of the story is the power of kindness and what it achieves… [This is an] action cue. I filled the Michael Fowler Centre with action.”
Nearly 60,000 people have engaged with Oat the Goat since it launched during Bullying Free NZ Week in mid-May.
A professional classical pianist's cat has gone viral after its interesting reaction to classical music was caught on camera.
Japanese pianist Yuriko Morota’s cat Choco has shot to fame on Twitter after his un-fur-getable reaction to the fourth mew-vment of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9; in particular a section featuring lots of strings (and no purr-cussuion).
It gave his owners paws for thought.
But it hasn’t been a cat-astrophe for Choco, as the video has been viewed more than two million times.
While Choco showed he was a fur-vent support of Mahler some cats purr-fer Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.
In 2015 scientists at the University of Lisbon discovered the piece, played in two-minute sections, made a noticeable difference to a cat’s state of relaxation while under anesthetic.
Music has also be written for cats by composer David Teie which simulates sympathetic cat noises, heartbeats and purring. The compositions again include a lot of string instruments.