14 May
A contemporary classical piece with nearly 1400 views in four days? Unheard of!
Well done to Aurélien Pétillot and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire music folks. I think this is the first performance of my music in the United States which isn’t a non-musical script.
7 May
I’m going to Auckland tonight. Given my history of hurriedly writing blog posts at Dunedin airport just before boarding, I thought I’d give myself a two-and-a-bit-hour head start.
The scores I need for my trip to Auckland. Thanks to Alison at the Music office for doing the binding.
Plenty of projects for my four days up in Auckland.
Seeing the family. Always a pleasure, never a chore. Mightily convenient for an airport pick-up too 
Beatrice. A cor anglais solo feature, just a 1-minute thing, extracted from a larger work. Tomorrow day, the APO plays it in an Education Concert in the Town Hall. I might have to say something from the stage.
Relish in Immature Bombast. This is the biggie, the piece for organ, drum kit and orchestra. My hope is that none of the three instruments feel like they need to hold back in volume. The organ can go for it (piloted by Timothy Noon), it can compete with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (conducted by Hamish McKeich), and the kit player (Jono Sawyer) doesn’t have to do that awkward classical-crossover thing of playing down when he’d rather rock out.
I’ve written half the piece. Hopefully I’m on the right track and I can write the rest without a whole heap of revision.
The Piano Tuner’s Performance Appraisal. I wrote this in nine days for the Estrella Quartet. They’re four piano students at the University of Auckland, tutored by Stephen De Pledge, who won the ROSL competition last year and have a tour to the UK in July/August. My programme note is this, verbatim:
ELLIS, Robbie (1984-): The Piano Tuner’s Performance Appraisal. File under (N) Novelty; (P) Piano Music; (S) Serialism.
General Intransigence. Commissioned by a high school orchestra, the St Peter’s & St Mary’s Sinfonia. Their conductor is Antun Poljanich, also Music Director of Auckland Youth Orchestra (who I’m writing a piece for later this year). SPASMS is performing General Intransigence for the first time on Thursday next week – I won’t be able to see it, but I can come to a rehearsal. Early morning start before school… man, I haven’t kept such hours since I was in the Westlake Concert Band, and I have to get from Greenhithe to Newmarket in peak hour. Whaaa.
Comedy Fest. My first in many years in which I am not a performer – so no performer’s pass and no standby free entry into gigs. Lame. That’s like, totally, discrimination against South Island residents. Never mind that I’m not doing a show, I totally would be if I was living in Auckland or Wellington.
Watching the Gala on TV, I quite liked the look of Milton Jones – hope to get to his show at The Classic. He stands out from the others, I quite like his style.
Auckland Art Gallery. Hanging out at an exhibition opening down here in Dunners got me a free ticket to an exhibition in Auckland. Thank you, Chris Saines (Director of the Auckland Art Gallery) – I’m looking forward to Degas to Dali.
Various coffees. Enough said.
Tags: Auckland, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, comedy, composer, Estrella Quartet, organ & orchestra, radio, St Peter's & St Mary's Sinfonia
5 May
Well, it’s local TV. Still waiting for that big feature on Campbell Live or whatever.
A Channel 9 crew came into my office yesterday to ask me some questions and shoot inserts of me noodling on two different types of keyboard. It’s a quickie look into what the Mozart Fellowship is about.
Story: University of Otago Mozart Fellow finds workload challenging
Tags: composer, Dunedin, Estrella Quartet, Mozart Fellowship, University of Otago
3 Apr
I think this is the "Swell Box"... err... I really can't remember.
The Auckland Town Hall Organ has a lot of stops – 84, in fact. Despite having been on a tour of the instrument and consulted the fantastically comprehensive resource that is the Organ Trust’s website, I can make neither head nor tail of the stop list.
It has designations like:
The numbers I mostly understand. 16 = the length in feet of the longest pipe (which is generally a C). So Wald Flute sounds an octave above Hohl Flute because the pipes are half as long, I get that. But what the hell is the difference between those two colours anyway? ‘Wald’ means ‘forest’, I know, but ‘Hohl’? The only German words like that I know are ‘Hohle’ (pit or cave) and ‘Hölle’ (hell). I didn’t know they played flutes in hellish caves.
Another hazard is the Nazard. For a start, does this rhyme with ‘hazard’ or ‘huzzahed’? The latter, by the way, is the totally legitimate past tense of the verb ‘to huzzah’, i.e. to greet someone or something with glee using the word ‘huzzah’ (modified form of ‘hooray’).
Superoctave is just like Regular Octave, except he wears a cape and his undies on the outside of his trousers.
I think I understand what Posaune 16 #14 means. One of the great works for orchestra involving organ is Mahler’s Symphony No 8, commonly known as the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’. ‘Posaune’ is the German word for ‘trombone’, and in this work Mahler calls for a particularly large brass section – well, two brass sections actually. The second of those sections is a bit removed from the action, and sometimes the conductor finds it difficult to communicate with them in rehearsal. As part of the restoration, Orgelbau Klais installed a PABX system and phone jacks throughout the Auckland Town Hall, and you can reach the 16th Trombone on a three-digit extension: #14 (hash-one-four).
Salicional reminds me of the word ‘salacious’. If you commit too many Salicional acts in your lifetime, do you get sent to the Hohl Flute for the rest of eternity?
Double Open Diapason… I’ve never been clear what on earth a diapason is. I can only think of the American word ‘diaper’… the thought of a double-open diaper makes me glad I don’t have children.
Last of all, Sharp Mixture 19.22.26.29 made me want to follow that particular IP address. There’s no website behind it, but apparently it’s assigned to a place called Dearborn – presumably Dearborn, Michigan, USA, world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company. To paraphrase Henry Ford, “Any organist can have any tone colour that he wants so long as it is black.”
Instead of trying to get my head around what all these colours mean, I’m leaving the nitty-gritty of registrations up to the organist, then I can come in and say “Yeah… nah… more of that… less of that…”. I’m merely giving the player broad ideas of what sound I want. So far my designations include:
In this respect, the detail is not my problem.
Tags: composer, organ & orchestra
27 Mar
Yesterday I was catching up on podcasts from Upbeat.
Phil Brownlee reviewed a concert by NZTrio in which they brought in a drum kit for Kenji Bunch’s Concerto for piano trio and percussion (from 10:38):
“It’s often challenging in a concert setting. [...] [An] issue with the drum kit is just the balance, particularly if you’re alluding to the rock setting, the rock-jazz kind of sound. Early on the piece it felt like Lenny Sakofsky was holding it down to balance with the trio and it doesn’t sound like a drum kit until you start hitting it hard.”
This resonated [pun] with me, as earlier that day I’d begun writing my own concerto for organ, drum kit and orchestra. Its working title is Relish in Immature Bombast, and I don’t want the kit player to feel at all like he needs to play down, because that’s when drum kit playing starts to suck.
(Image modified with apologies to Hyperbole and a Half.)
Tags: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, composer, organ & orchestra, radio, reviews
16 Mar
Taking a narcissistic point of view, which is the more quotable review quote in the long run?
Jonathan W. Marshall on Zomburlesque for Theatreview:
A special non-zombie, non-burlesque treat is when Ellis, showing a musical and comic virtuosity which would not be out of place in the old Cotton Club’s own stage shows, effectively plays both the trumpet and the trombone at once, calling on the cast beside him to hold one instrument as he reaches to grab the next and immediately continue the same musical phrase on a new instrument.
From the same review::
…apparently heterosexual…
The second one is just a bit punchier, a bit more concise… brevity is, after all, a virtue.
With my lovely assistants, Jepha Krieg aka The Purple Rose aka Georgie; and Hans Landon-Lane aka Clever Hansel aka The Right Reverend Dr Aloysius Splitfoot. Photo taken last night by Deano Shirriffs.
Tags: Dunedin Fringe Festival, photos, reviews, theatre, Zomburlesque
3 Mar
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. (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:
In due course I will blog further about this project, but for now I want to take you back in time to the application process in October 2011. I sketched this at my desk at work:
The above was my guide for the first of two a cappella mockups:
Organ & Orchestra Mockups by Robbie Ellis on SoundCloud
The call for proposals asked composers to give their ideas, and these audio snippets accompanied my application. They helped to illustrate my ideas as set out in my cover letter, reproduced below.
—-
Lee Martelli
Education Programme Manager, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
PO Box 56024
Dominion Rd
Auckland 1446
31 October 2011
Dear Lee,
I am writing to apply for a place in the 2012-2013 APO Composers’ Workshop, to write a piece for organ and orchestra.
My connection to the APO goes back to my school days, with the Young Composers Competition and the New Zealand Secondary Schools Symphony Orchestra. As a participant in the 2010-2011 Composers’ Workshop, I felt very fortunate to renew that connection, and I would be grateful to continue it in the next two years.
As the 2012 University of Otago Mozart Fellow, I will be in the fortunate position of being able to compose full-time, and I would love to be involved in this project. Although I am moving to Dunedin in January, I will be involved in several other North Island-based productions in 2012, so I will be able to attend workshops.
I have never written for organ before but, to be fair, few New Zealand composers have. My concept is to subvert its grandeur, and to set the king of (keyboard) instruments against the peasant of keyboard instruments. So far, I’ve come up with three ideas to incorporate into a 10-minute piece:
Please listen to the attached CD [ed: the above SoundCloud embed] for massive multi-voice mock-ups of Points 1 and 2:
I can’t give you confirmed instrumentation yet, this depends on how the piece turns out. I can tell you the following:
Please find attached my application form and scores of two of my past orchestral works, Feral and Fanfare 10. This should suffice for my application, and I look forward to hearing the results of the selection process.
Yours sincerely,
[the not-so-elaborate scrawl that passes for my signature]
Robbie Ellis
Tags: Auckland, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, composer, Mozart Fellowship, organ & orchestra
16 Feb
(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.
However, Dunedin has a Fringe too, which is running from 15 to 25 March. I’ve wasted no time getting involved, and I’m in two shows that you should totally check out.
Zomburlesque. Somehow this is coming together, with over two dozen performers from both Wellington and Dunedin. Just today I finished arranging all the music for the band (I’m so stoked with who I have: aside from me on horns, there’s Emma Wollum on accordion, composer wunderkind Corwin Newall on keys, and Michelle & Maddy from Hunting Bears on bass & drums). Three-sixths of the Capping Show Sexytet make up a trio of backing vocalists, and there are also some local Dunedin burlesque performers taking part. Some were at the programme release – see them on the right.
Thu 15, Fri 16, Wed 17 March – 9pm – Sammy’s – $30/$20 – Ticket bookings – Fringe Fest details – Facebook event here
Song Sale. The first ever Song Sale in Dunedin took place on Monday just gone, and we had a great-sized crowd in The Church and wrote some fun songs. I have out-of-town guests during Fringe – many Wellington Zomburlesque performers, comedian Sam Smith, and just last night I confirmed the multi-instrumentalist awesomeman Adam Page for the Wednesday show. We promise a great time and it’s free entry.
Mon 19, Wed 21 March – 7:30pm – The Church, Restaurant Bar & Cinema – Free! ($5 to commission a song) – Fringe Fest details – Facebook page here
Signing off so I can board the plane.
Tags: Dunedin, Dunedin Fringe Festival, Mozart Fellowship, Song Sale, Zomburlesque
7 Feb
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.
Additional to that, I’ve got a few songs from old Song Sales to record properly, including The Cheese Doesn’t Go There.
I can also customise my profile page and highlight certain items – what I’ve done is to sort my items into Sets. I can embed said sets onto webpages in a variety of styles:
Beats & Remixes by Robbie Ellis
Composer, improviser, broadcaster and other. Most of what I do is musical or otherwise performing arts-related. I come from Auckland, lived in Wellington, now reside in Dunedin. (read on if you want...)
Monthly gigs in Dunedin where any audience member can commission a song on a chosen theme/title/topic/genre etc. It's awesome.