2:30 pm Sunday 1st December 2013

Avonhead School Hall

Conductor : Anthony Ferner

Guest soloist : Mark Walton (Clarinet)

E. Coates “Knightsbridge March”

A. Shaw “Concerto for Clarinet “

E. Greig “Elegaic Melodies for Strings”

Interval : 15 minutes

M. Calvert “Canadian Folk Song Suite”

A. van den Broek “Above the North”

A. Ferner “Riot of Spring”

F. Delius “Walk to the Paradise Garden”

You are welcome to join us for afternoon tea

after the concert.

p 2

Anthony Ferner

Conductor of the Risingholme Orchestra

Anthony Ferner has 40 years of conduct-

ing experience alongside his professional

orchestral and solo career.

He is Principal flute of the Christchurch

Symphony, Lecturer in Flute and Senior

Fellow at the University of Canterbury.

For 17 years in Australia he held positions

in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and

the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra

and worked and studied for 2 years in Mi-

lan as teacher and freelance musician.

He is a graduate in music from the

University of Canterbury and 1972 winner

of the New Zealand National Concerto

Competition.

He studied in London under Peter Lloyd (Principal flute LSO), Trevor

Wye and William Bennet at the Guildhall School of Music and attended

master classes of James Galway and Jean Pierre Rampal in Nice.

He studied conducting in London, St Petersburg and Milan and has

conducted in the Sydney Mozart Players, Sydney Gilbert and Sullivan

Society at the Sydney Opera House, the Wellington City Opera’s 1987

production of Traviata, ‘Les Miserables’(1995) ‘Beauty and the Beast’

and ‘Cats’ (2007) for the Napier Operatic Society.

He has conducted St Petersburg Chamber Orchestra, Tibilisi Radio

Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony

Orchestras in the studio. He has conducted concerts with orchestral

summer schools and Regional Orchestras around New Zealand.

He has frequently appeared as soloist and conductor with the

Christchurch Symphony, as well as L’Estro Armonico Strings.

He was appointed Musical Director of the Risingholme Orchestra

in 2008.

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Bruce Roberts

Guest Conductor for Canadian Folk Song Suite

Bruce Roberts is currently Principal Trumpet of the Christchurch Sym-

phony Orchestra and Soloist with the baroque chamber music group,

Canterbury Baroque. He is also heavily involved with many community

music groups including the CSM Concert Band, CSM Wind Orchestra

and the Addington Brass Band. Bruce also teaches at many schools in

the Christchurch area.

Mark Walton is a highly respected

and popular figure in the Australian

and New Zealand musical scene and

widely acknowledged as a virtuoso

clarinet and saxophone performer,

inspiring teacher and charismatic

musician.

Mark has held senior positions and

been the guest artist in many of the

leading International Musical Insti-

tutions from London to Kabul. For

many years Mark held the position

of Chair of Performance at the

Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Mark has recorded numerous solo albums, written and compiled over

200 hundred music publications and performed in many parts of the

world. He is also regarded as a leading authority and pioneer in Dis-

tance Instrumental Music Education and currently he teaches students

in several different countries.

Although based in Sydney, Mark enjoys spending as much time as he

can at his place in Oxford, NZ.

Mark was awarded the Order of Australia medal in 2005 for his contri-

bution to Music Education in Australia.

Mark Walton – Guest Soloist, Clarinet

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PROGRAMME NOTES

Eric Coates (1886 – 1957)

Knightsbridge March

This march is part of the London Suite composed in 1933. It became famous as the

theme for the BBC program "In Town Tonight". So many people wrote in asking

for the name of the march that the BBC printed slips of paper with the name on

them to send back. Knightsbridge is a very desirable part of London near Hyde

Park, recently an apartment there sold for 100 million pounds.

Eric Coates studied viola and composition at the Royal Academy and then played

viola in the Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry Wood. After seven years

as principal viola he was sacked. Coates explained in a later interview that this was

due to him sending in too many deputies while he was conducting his own works

with other orchestras. During the 1930's he produced many light orchestral pieces

such as "Three Bears", "Meadow to Mayfair" and songs such as "Bird Songs at

Eventide". Coates composed several marches to be used as themes for regional TV

stations, and his music was often used for TV and Film. "By the Sleepy Lagoon"

was the theme for "Desert Island Classics" and "Halcyon Days" from the "Three

Elizabeths Suite" was the theme for "Forsyte Saga". Coates declined an invita-

tion to write the film score for "The Dam Busters" but he had recently completed

a march that became "The Dam Busters March". Vic Bartley

Artie Shaw

Concerto for Clarinet

Artie Shaw was one of the leading jazz performers and bandleaders of the swing

era of the 1930s and 1940s, sometimes known as the "King of the Clarinet".

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky was born in 1910 to Jewish-immigrant parents in New

York. After leaving school at 16 to focus on music he travelled with various bands

within the U.S. and was influenced by listening to recordings as diverse as Louis

Armstrong, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, and Ravel.

In the summer of 1938, Shaw chose "Begin the Beguine" to be the first of six tunes

he would record with RCA whose pessimism with the whole idea of recording the

long tune "that nobody could remember from beginning to end anyway" resulted

in it being released on the "B" side of the record. Shaw's persistence paid off,

though, when "Begin the Beguine" became a best-selling record in 1938, peaking

at No. 3, skyrocketing Shaw and his band to fame and popularity.

Shaw made several musical shorts in 1939 for Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures.

He portrayed himself in the Fred Astaire film, ‘Second Chorus’ (1940), which

featured Shaw and his orchestra playing "Concerto for Clarinet." The film brought

him two Oscar nominations, one for Best Score and one for Best Song ("Love of

My Life"). Helen Reddecliffe

p 5

Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907)

Two Elegaic Melodies

1. Heart’s Wounds

2. The Last Spring

Edvard Grieg is considered the greatest Romantic Nationalist composer of

Norway. In the space of ten days in the spring of 1880, Grieg set twelve songs

around the poems of Vinje, a Norwegian poet who wrote in the rural dialect. A

year later Grieg transcribed two of them, “Heart Wounds” and “The Last Spring,”

for string orchestra as “Two Elegiac Melodies”.

The poetry of “Heart’s Wounds” describes painful memories triggered by the

approach of spring; Grieg’s melody captures the wavering between despair and

hope . The melody first appears quietly in the first violins, supported by the second

violins, violas, and cellos. For the next verse, the cellos passionately present the

melody against a halting accompaniment from the rest of the orchestra. The

melody returns to the first violins for the third verse, where it becomes a bold

declaration.

“The Last Spring” (“Last” meaning “Final”) has become one of Grieg’s most

enduring melodies. The poetry contemplates the ephemerality of life, making

Grieg’s bittersweet setting a popular choice for Norwegian funerals.

Philippa Graham

Morley Calvert (1928-1991)

Canadian Folk Song Suite

Guest Conductor Bruce Roberts

1. Marianne s'en va-t-au moulin. (Marianne went to the mill)

2. She's like the swallow.

3. J'entends le moulin. (I hear the mill wheel)

The suite was composed in 1967 for the Centennial of the federation of Canada. It

was originally written for Brass Band and published by the Salvation Army. This

version for Concert Band remained unpublished until recently. The first and third

movements are folk songs from Quebec where they seem to like windmills and the

second is from Newfoundland.

Morley Calvert was a music teacher in Montreal high schools and from 1960-1970

he was the director of the Montreal Citadel Band. He was also very successful as

the director of the Barrie Central Collegiate band which won two gold medals at

the World Music Festival in Kerkrade, The Netherlands.

p 6

Composer: Alex van den Broek

Alex has a First Class Honours Degree in Composition from the University of

Canterbury and a Diploma in Jazz from CPIT Jazz School majoring in

Composition and Arranging. He is much in demand as a composer and arranger by

many New Zealand performers and organisations.

Alex was the co-founder and musical director/conductor ('05-'09) of the Silencio

Ensemble, a ten piece new-music ensemble. Alongside many concerts in the

Canterbury region they collaborated with the Christchurch Art Gallery to perform

'Art and Socialism' (2008), and ‘Listen/Rita’ (2009).

He has received several grants from Creative New Zealand including one in 2008

for 'Still Standing Silent' a work composed for mixed discipline ensemble

(Classical and Jazz) and contemporary dancer (Julia Milsom). This work was

premiered in Christchurch in November 2009. In 2010, Alex received funding to

work with well-known Sydney group 'The Song Company' utilizing a text by a

fellow Dutch New Zealander, Riemke Ensing.

Recent creative projects have included performances of Still Standing Silent for

the Body Festival and Totally Weill for the Christchurch Arts Festival.

Above the North – Commissioned by Risingholme Orchestra

As a composer, I enjoy composing for specific community groups and

orchestras. Getting to know the personalities, the skills and strengths of the

musicians, and the ethos of each group is all part of the fun for me when

working on a commission of this nature.

‘Above the North’ evokes an abstract spiritual idea, firmly rooted in place

and nature. Ideas of time, distance and space are somehow connected to

and part of the landscape. The work has pastoral qualities evoking the

Canterbury plains which are juxtaposed with abstract and bold brassy

moments. The main theme permeates most of these differing qualities often

in disguised forms adding to its atmospheric quality.

Alex van den Broek

Frederick Delius

The Walk to the Paradise Garden

This intermezzo is an arrangement by Sir Thomas Beecham that originally ap-

peared between the fifth and sixth scenes of Delius’ opera A Village Romeo and

Juliet which premiered in 1907. In the opera Sali and Vrenchen (the Romeo and

Juliet) have made life impossible for themselves by Sali killing Vrenchen’s angry

father. They are encouraged to go into the Paradise Garden (a dilapidated but

lovely riverside inn) by the Dark Fiddler, who symbolizes death. The couple are

immersed in the glowing beauty of the garden, where they remember happier

p 7

THANK YOU

The members of Risingholme Orchestra gratefully acknowledge the assis-

tance and support received from the following people and organizations:

Tony Ferner, our conductor and coach

Tutors from the C.S.O.:

Milana Kornienko, who tutored the Strings section;

Bruce Roberts who tutored the Brass section.

Our Guest Artist for this concert, Mark Walton,

and guest members of the orchestra (see the lists below and on page 8)

The C.S.M. guest players for Canadian Folk Song Suite;

Grace Adair Bass Clarinet

Lorraine Bennett, Bass Clarinet

Matthew Bennett, Tuba

Irene Frost Alto Saxophone

Richard Reddecliffe, Tenor Saxophone

Sophie Reddecliffe, Flute

Jenny Tubb Euphonium Simon Jones Gynaecology, for sponsorship enabling the separate string

and concert band items

Christchurch Community Trust

Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.

NZ Federation of Graduate Women

National Library of NZ

times. While in the garden, the lovers decide that they would rather die in the in-

tensity of their love instead of impoverished and scorned by their disapproving

families.

Woodwinds and strings predominate throughout the piece, a seamless develop-

ment of several short melodic ideas. There are a pair of passionate peaks in the

course of the journey, but overall, the music is quiet and delicate, ending in a whis-

per. When Delius died in 1934, the BBC chose this lush music to follow the an-

nouncement.

Philippa Graham

p 8

1st

Violin Pauline Sewell

1

Ron Newton Marlys Donaldson Leane Gurney Alison Taylor John Caughley Jean Rowe Kath Hill

2nd

Violin Beth Garvey ¹ Lyndsay Fenwick Graham Carrington Ann Jennings Barbara Litchwark Bill Bromley Aya Kumada ElizabethWinkworth

Viola Sheila Vance ¹ Tonya Sadler Neroli Boschetti Michael Fogden Jhonethon Vermeer

2

Cello Yvonne Webb

1

Naomi Roberts Dorothy Maclean Diederic Ruarus Lucie Brown Tony Francis

Double Bass Delwyn McKenzie ¹ Philippa Graham Mike Clayton

Flute Linda Sorensen

1

Donna Tairakena

Diana Kirpensteijn Ai Ando (Alto)

2

Piccolo Linda Sorensen Oboe

Jack Goldsmith 1

Anne Godfrey

Cor Anglais Anne Godfrey Clarinet

Barbara Peddie 1

Stuart Buchanan Diana McGlinn Ali Begg Bernard Brettell Ray Shave

Saxophone Stuart Buchanan

Diana McGlinn Jenny Bartley Jo Walton

2

Bassoon Helen Reddecliffe ¹ Allen Cookson Ross Gurney

Horn Jenny Bartley

1

Elizabeth Christensen Trumpet

Vic Bartley ¹ Jim Parsons Mel Smith

Trombone Jill Fenton

1

Terry Williams Tuba Mathew Bennett

2

Timpani Hamish Upton

12

Percussion Hamish Upton

12

Ai Ando 2

Harp Sasha Henderson

2

Piano Nanako Sato

2

Narrators Linda Sorensen Elizabeth Christensen

Canadian Folk Song Suite Guests Thanked on page 7

1 Section Leader

2 Guest

RISINGHOLME ORCHESTRA PLAYERS