NZSM Hunter Series: Meehan & Manhire

Te Kōkī, the New Zealand School of Music presents the 2011 Hunter Series, a series of Thursday evening concerts featuring music making of the very highest calibre.

In this first concert of the series, NZSM lecturer and pianist/composer Norman Meehan presents his settings of poems by Professor Bill Manhire, Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at VUW. Bill will narrate the poems before they are sung.

"These concerts present poems and song lyrics by Bill Manhire, and music written specifically to accompany those words," says composer/pianist Norman Meehan. "Bill and I began collaborating on some songs in 2009, and last year Rattle Records released 'Buddhist Rain', an album of those settings. It was such a rich and rewarding experience writing and performing that music that we’ve continued and this new material is the result.

"Of the poems included in this programme, eight were written specifically for Hannah Griffin to sing. The majority of the other poems come from two collections of Bill’s poems, 'Victims of Lightning' (VUP, 2010) and 'Lifted' (VUP, 2005). Those poems were written without any notion that they might assume life as songs, but they are all so musical that they seemed to cry out to be set as song lyrics. So far Bill hasn’t objected."

The artists involved in this concert are: Norman Meehan (piano), Hannah Griffin (vocals), Colin Hemmingsen (reeds), Mara Simpson, Ruth Armishaw (accompanying vocals), Wade Reeves (guitar, accompanying vocals), Nick Tipping (bass, accompanying vocals) and Bill Manhire (narrator).

The Hunter Concert Series are concerts in which the NZSM presents their performance staff/friends in professional concerts of superb music. The other concerts in this series for 2011 are on May 5, May 26, June 23, July 21, August 18, September 15, October 20 and November 24.

This event will take place in the Hunter Council Chamber, Hunter Building, Victoria University of Wellington.

This event is being recorded for future DVD/CD release. Seating is limited to 150.

Event listed by New Zealand School of Music

View their other events or contact promoter