Since 2000, May has been New Zealand Music Month. It started by encouraging radio stations to play more New Zealand music but now it has become a celebration of New Zealand music of all genres.
It has been massively important, says Wellington composer Gareth Farr, whose piece, Waipoua, will be played in the Southern Sinfonia's concerts on May 18 and 19.
''From the pop music point of view, I remember about 20 years ago listening to radio where you would never hear Kiwi music and now people don't bat an eyelid. It's not 'we have to have a quota'. People actually want it. People are desperate to hear music from their surroundings, from their city, from their environment. It's the same with classical music,'' he said.
''Orchestras in New Zealand have been very proactive and clever about it, by just sneaking it into subscription concerts so that people who think `I don't know if I could go to a whole concert of new music, but as long as I can hear a Beethoven symphony I'll listen to 10 minutes of new New Zealand music', then walk out, surprising themselves by liking it.
"Now orchestral audiences will look at a programme and go `Oh, there's a new piece. That might be quite exciting' and `Oh it's by a person who lives in my city'.''
His short piece, Waipoua, is not new but it's one of the few contemporary works that has received several performances. Most do not get repeat performances after the initial excitement of their premieres. Written in 1994 when Farr was studying at the Eastman School of Music in the US, it was inspired by a trip back to New Zealand with an American friend who was a clarinettist, and a visit to the giant kauri of the Waipoua Forest in Northland.
''I remember walking through what was to most New Zealanders a fairly standard native bush walk, and the look of astonishment and joy on his face - he was just soaking it in. And you know what, he's bloody right. This is the most incredible thing and we get a bit complacent about it. And at the end of the walk there's the biggest kauri in New Zealand and it's really just so breathtaking.
"There was a kereru, a woodpigeon, sitting right on one of the branches, and when we walked up it flew right over us with a whoo-whoo - that amazing sound they make with their wings.
"It was just such a moment and I think - all of a young man's emotions all sort of wrapped up in that love of nature and awe of nature. There's a moment where it just takes off in the middle of the piece. When you are listening to it you'll know where it is,'' he said.
Most of the music he had written up to then was intense, dark and extreme with spiky rhythms, but this piece was 100% from the heart, he explained.
''It was very much about love and loss and heartbreak and joy and all of those things, which as a 23-year-old, there is no shortage of. It's a long time ago and it's difficult for me to remember exactly where my mind was. It's difficult for anyone in their 40s to remember where their mind was in their early 20s.''
''It's a challenge for orchestras all over the world to balance the need to be stimulating and play new repertoire while revelling in the glory of the enormous body of masterpieces that are there, just banging the door down, just wanting to be performed. It's a massive challenge and I think every orchestra approaches it in their own way,'' Kelly said.
He liked putting new works shoulder-to-shoulder with older works as it shed a fascinating light on both.
Handel's Harp Concerto Op 4 No 6 with soloist Helen Webby opens the concert. People may not recognise the title but once they hear the first notes they will realise they know the music.It's a glorious, serene piece, that is sometimes played on the organ, he said.
Also featuring the harp is Ravel's Introduction and Allegro. Written as a septet to show off the range of the new double-action pedal harp with flute, clarinet and strings, it is not often heard as an orchestral work.
''It is also a wonderfully serene piece from a very different musical world [from Handel's]. It's beautifully romantic and delicate and evocative and very tuneful,'' he said. Beethoven's fourth symphony is less well known than the Eroica, his majestic third, and his famous fifth.
''When Beethoven finished writing the Eroica, this titanic monolith of a symphony that threw out the window everyone's conception of what was possible with a symphony, he immediately went to work on the C minor symphony which became the fifth. It would in fact have been the fourth, but he received a commission and for one reason or another decided to start a new symphony in B flat that became the fourth.
''A lot of people think it's because he reached a bit of an impasse with the fifth and didn't know how to proceed, and in a way you can see him working out some of his ideas for the fifth in this fourth symphony. In a way, the writing of the fourth symphony, perfect as it is in itself, also released his ideas to then go on and finish the fifth. It's the first Beethoven symphony I ever conducted, so it has a rather sentimental place in my heart,'' Kelly said.
Mozart's Symphony No 35 ''Haffner'' concludes the concert.
''It's another piece that tells a lot about the composer's life. In 1782 Mozart was deep in hectic work, finishing an opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio, he was about to get married - everything was happening at a million miles an hour and he gets a letter from his father saying 'we need a 45-50 minute serenade for a big family celebration of the Haffners, the ennoblement of one of the sons'.
"Mozart said he'd start working on it in every spare minute and posted the movements as quickly as he could. He sent his father a six-movement serenade which they performed to great success, no doubt. About four to six months later, Mozart was looking for a new symphony for a concert and asked his father to send it back,'' he said.
''He gets the music back from his father and writes back saying `this is terrific. I'd forgotten every note of it'. He then pulled four movements out of it to create the Haffner symphony. It's an absolute crackerjack. I just love it, because it captures so much energy. It's dazzling in its way and very celebratory and incredibly energising.''
See it, hear it
''Harp Magic: Handel, Ravel, Mozart, Beethoven and Gareth Farr'', the Southern Sinfonia's first subscription concert for the year, will be performed on May 18 at 5pm and May 19 at 3pm in the King's and Queen's Performing Arts Centre, Bay View Rd, Dunedin. It is conducted by Brett Kelly, with Helen Webby on harp.
