The Zephyr wind ensemble blows through town with a breathtaking concert which includes composer Gareth Farr's new Chamber Music New Zealand commission Mad Little Machine.
A quintet of New Zealand Symphony Orchestra principals are in the eye of the storm.
"Gareth is a very good mate of ours, so it's really exciting and quite a responsibility doing the premiere of his new work," Dunedin born and bred flautist Bridget Douglas said yesterday.
"You want to do it justice and not embarrass him. Usually, when you do an old classic piece, you can listen to recordings. But when you do a premiere, there are no recordings.
"What is Gareth trying to say with this? What fun is he trying to have? It's a very fun piece. It's crazy and veiny and energetic. I imagine if I was in the audience, I'd be laughing out loud at times. It certainly has all of us players sitting on the edge of our seats. Things move very quickly in a short space of time," Ms Douglas said.
"Rhythm is the key to Gareth's music. He's very rhythmically driven. There's a lot of stopping and starting and changing again. Every bar has a different time signature. One bar will be in seven, the next in four and the next in five. You can't snooze for a minute."
Composer Gareth Farr said he wanted the work to stretch and move the quintet.
"I know these players are so, so good, which is why I wanted to do a rhythmic piece for them. It's a very tricky piece, though. I really went for it," he said.
"It's not light, but there is a sense of humour to it. It's about the excitement of rhythm, rather than something pretty or lyrical or sweet. The beat changes all over the place, so it's like some crazy little machine that gets stuck in a rhythmic groove and then trips over itself and zooms off in a completely different direction," Farr said.
"I love rhythms. There is a rhythm to life and most people don't think like that, but I can't help it. I've always been a percussionist at heart who's walked along tapping my feet.
It's wonderful when you start tapping into things that are part of the rhythmic part of your life.
"A premiere is like having a baby. It's terrifying. But you have to let go because it's not your piece any more. It's their piece," he said.
"When you relinquish a bit of control, you get people doing things that you'd never have thought of in a million years.
That's when it turns into a collaborative thing. I absolutely love that."
The programme is: Woodwind Quartet (Elliot Carter), Mad Little Machine (Gareth Farr), Quintet (Nielsen), La Cheminee du roi rene (King Rene's Fireplace) (Milhaud), Three Incantations for Wind Quartet (Ross Edwards) and Six Bagatelles (Ligeti).
Zephyr performs at 7.30pm tomorrow at Otago Girls' High School.
