Category Archives: Uncategorized

Orchan & Orgestra

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I am one of six participant composers in the APO’s Town Hall Organ Composition Project. Yuss. We are each writing a piece for organ and orchestra – we’ve got three workshops this year, and a concert on 2 May 2013 23 May 2013. (Save the date.)

This is a joint venture of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the Auckland Town Hall Organ Trust. A week or so ago I had a tour of the instrument and saw the innards… probably not every single innard, but most of the 5,291 of them. Here’s the back end of the console: read more

Infested with Fringe

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(This is yet another rush blog post written at Dunedin Airport just before boarding a flight. I have a history of these…)

Sapphire LaNeige, zombie Abby Pigden, Eden Honeypot & Frisky Business. The three burlesque girls are performing in Zomburlesue, 15-17 March.

Tonight the Dunedin Fringe Festival programme was released, along with zombies. There was a big box in the middle of the room, and at the moment of release, zombies broke out, shuffling among the crowd, wielding programme books. It was awesome.

I’ve always felt at home in fringe festivals. I did the Wellington Fringe for many years (generally no fewer than 3 shows per fest), although regrettably I’m not at all involved this year since I’ve moved to Dunedin. read more

SoundCloud

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I’ve been discovering the joys of SoundCloud. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, it’s a clean, functional host for audio.

Free accounts can upload up to 120 minutes of audio, but I’ve just about hit that limit. I’ve parted with €29.99 for a year’s worth of upgrade.

The first thing I get is another 120 minutes of audio. I can start making a dent in that with such things as a uni electroacoustic work, theatre music from shows I’ve done in Wellington (Young & Hungry 2008, German Play 2008, Two Day Plays 2009), and another composition or two. read more

Faux-zart Mellowship

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Previous Fellow Chris Adams put my name on the door. Ah, bless.

On 1 February 2012 I began my time/term/tenure as Mozart Fellow at the University of Otago.

I ran the numbers a while back looking at the list of all previous Mozart Fellows – at 27 years, 1 month and 19 days, I am the second youngest to take up the position. That’s cool.

Rather awesomely, I get my own office. In contrast to Radio New Zealand House in Wellington, you can actually open the windows and have contact with fresh, outside air. In fact, there are eight such openable windows. Rest assured, I can close them when it gets cold in winter. read more

xkcd on Wikipedia

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It’s the dreaded blackout – en.wikipedia.org is down for the next 24 hours. Students will be unable to write essays; journalists will be unable to write stories; the general public can’t use it as a “brain extension”.

The geekily insightful web comic xkcd has done a great job of covering Wikipedia’s influence on modern life:

Getting Out of Hand
http://xkcd.com/333/ – Getting Out of Hand
(Used under CC BY-NC 2.5)

Thankfully Google isn’t participating in the blackout, so a quick search for “site:xkcd.com Wikipedia” is not only possible, but fruitful. Here’s a collection of xkcd episodes about Wikipedia: read more

Little India

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I arrived in Dunedin just over eight hours ago. Chronology of my week:

  • Tue 10: the last time presenting Sound Lounge.
  • Wed 11: my last day at work for Radio New Zealand Concert; after-work drinks.
  • Thu 12: packed up all my belongings in my flat in Wellington; parents flew into town.
  • Fri 13: movers arrived to take half of the belongings in a truck; big karaoke-filled farewell party at The Fringe Bar (with a superbly varied cross-section of Wellingtonians)
  • Sat 14: tetrised the remainder of my belongings into my car; sailed from Wellington to Picton; stayed overnight in Kaikoura.
  • Sun 15: drove from Kaikoura to Dunedin; stopped in Christchurch to walk the perimeter of the Red Zone (more on that later); unpacked my stuff into my new flat.

I have a lawn.

In true awesome Dunedin fashion, my wall-mate (i.e. I’m in 12A, she’s in 12B) helped me unload a car’s worth of stuff, suggested the best Indian restaurant in town (Little India, 308 Moray Pl, for the record) and gave me a brief tiki-tour of the university campus.

After that, I’ve taken the chance to unpack and find a home for many items. It’s not yet perfect, but it’s coming along. Amusingly, the best place to store my musical instruments is in the kitchen. This beat is cookin’. read more

Signing Off

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Two of my last podcastable contributions to Radio New Zealand as an employee:

Yesterday was the broadcast date for my final piece for Upbeat, a show I’ve moved up the ranks with. Starting as fill-in assistant producer (for a day or two at a time), I eventually became fill-in producer (for a day or two at a time) and once or twice even fill-in presenter (for a day or two at a time). Along the way I supplied them with plenty of extra packages here and there – all sort of in addition to the job I’m actually employed to do. read more

City of the Future

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Hamiltron - City of the Future

(Design thiefed from mrvintage.co.nz)

The programme for the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival has been released. The whole festival runs from 17 February to 1 March 2012, and it’s held within the grounds of the best thing Hamilton has to offer. There are so many beautiful areas, especially the themed gardens (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American modernist, etc), and many of the shows take advantage of those onnections.

For instance, in 2010 I performed inside the Victorian Garden Conservatory as the pianist in Austen Found: The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen – a slight anachronism in name (Jane Austen being from the Regency period some decades earlier), but very similar in culture and setting. read more