Robbie Ellis

Right now I’m ensconced in Chicago. The change in climate from Austin’s glorious spring sun to the Lake Effect has been shocking – far worse than when I made a similar transition from Guadalajara to Seattle in mid-February. Last week I bought my first ever pair of gloves, for instance.

I designed my trip so that I’d be able to catch up on projects now, instead of constantly travelling. With three weeks in Chicago, I have no pressure to see all the sights in a short time, and I’ve been able to spend lots of time in the public library and a café being a creative.

First I had to edit my 15-minute segment about SXSW for Music 101 on Radio New Zealand National. Embedding is disabled for this piece of audio, but you listen to it here. Then the deadline approached for show and workshop submissions for Improvention 2013 – that had to be adhered to.

Since that time, I’ve been flitting from project to project. Arrangements for a band I want to form when I get back? 15% complete, then BAM I hear about Short+Sweet Song, a festival/competition of 10-minute musicals happening in Auckland a few weeks after I get back. I buckle down, attempting to transform a Thomas Sainsbury playscript into a singable libretto, but that’s haaaaaaaard.

Then Jess Rodda tweets me out of the blue asking for a short piece for her horn, trombone and tuba trio. Why not procrastinate on a new creative project? I write 95 seconds of fiddly ragtime music in just under four hours.

I first call it Rag to a Bull (geddit? geddit?), then Trolling the Trio. I settle on Trolling the Tuba because it’s an inherently funnier word.

Two days ago I got “commissioned” and wrote the notes, yesterday I revised and tidied up the score and parts, last night Jess blogged about it (complete with my programme note) and today I complete the blogging echo chamber. All within 46 hours.

A generic travel-related icon.

There are a whole lot of things that I should have written about, but haven’t. It’s been a while since an update.

In the last month I’ve moved cities from Dunedin to Auckland. Over my last week down south (10-17 December), I had a whole lot of stuff to finish off: my last Song Sale, recording the tracks for Promise & Promiscuity, recording further vocals of songs with other Song Salers, and producing a live radio broadcast from Albany Street Studios. And of course there was the simple fact that I was leaving Dunedin after my one year as Mozart Fellow, a damn significant time in my life… maybe I should blog about these things when they come to fruition.

After Christmas with the family in Auckland, I was back down to Wellington to do some work as a presenter for Radio New Zealand Concert, and some development work on At Least We Have Our Jobs, a drama production for Radio New Zealand National. I spent a lot of time in the studio for that.

Tomorrow I fly off to Mexico and I’ll be away from New Zealand for four months. In that time I’m going to Cuba (Cuba!), the Seattle Festival of Improvisational Theater and the Chicago Improv Festival, and I’ll be in Austin during SXSW. I may not answer emails or Facebook quite as regularly.

I’m feeling a bit arse because of vaccines and dental work a couple of days ago. I still have tax and GST to do, not to mention packing for four months away. Eep.

Mstislav Rostropovich, Dmitri Shostakovich & Sviatoslav Richter in 1968. (Source)

I wrote and presented the most recent Composer of the Week programme for Radio New Zealand Concert. It’s not about a single composer; the topic is rather works written for Mstislav Rostropovich. You can listen to it here until Sunday 28 October (embedding won’t work sorry).

Yes, of course, there are the famous cello concertos: Shostakovich’s two, Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto, all of Britten’s cello works, but there’s a whole lot more besides.

In the programme I don’t even have a chance to mention any pieces by Olivier Messiaen, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho and James Macmillan, just to name a few. But I do get to play music by Aram Khachaturian, Leonard Bernstein, Krzysztof Penderecki, Miecysław Weinberg, and Boris Tchaikovsky (no relation).

Actually, I realise now I completely left out Ástor Piazzolla, not even name-checking the guy. Oh well, wasn’t just him I left out.

Well represented too is Alfred Schnittke, a name that’s often left off when talking about Rostropovich’s great composer collaborators. I get in a bit of his opera Life With an Idiot and his Cello Sonata No 2.

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I reviewed four concerts in the recent Otago Festival of the Arts for Upbeat. Firstly, the Vienna Boys Choir and Hahn-Bin Amadeus Leopold on Thursday’s programme:

And then Le Vent du Nord and H’Sao today:

Besides these four, I went to see Rita & Douglas (compelling performance from Jennifer Ward-Lealand and very well-judged playing by Michael Houstoun, might have been a bit long though), the Spooky Men’s Chorale (lol), and the wind quintet Zephyr performing both for the Festival and for Chamber Music New Zealand (a well put-together programme with very interesting music).

But my most fun experience of the Festival? Catching up once again with an old mate from Wellington, Carlos Navae, and being invited to play trombone for his late-night Festival Club gig. Haven’t had a Latin jam in aaaaages. (Wellington: lots of Latin music. Dunedin: not so much.)

Just had an interview with Eva Radich on Radio New Zealand Concert’s Upbeat programme. I talk about:

• In meinem letzten Leiden for Auckland Youth Orchestra (tomorrow in Whangarei, Sunday in Helensville, Friday 5 October in the Auckland Town Hall);
• Relish in Immature Bombast for Tim Noon, Jono Sawyer and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (Thu 23 May 2013 in the Auckland Town Hall);
• The Piano Tuner’s Performance Appraisal for Estrella, the eight-hand two-piano quartet (probably never getting performed again);
• and Song Sale Dunedin.

Eva joins the list of people who don’t like the title ‘Relish in Immature Bombast’. I suggest it’s still no less ridiculous than ‘Concerto for Organ, Drum Kit and Orchestra No 1′.

Listen below:

Upbeat – 28 September 2012 – Robbie Ellis

The University of Otago Music Department has some recording studios at Albany Street. Because I’m technically staff there, this great facility is available to me from time to time.

I was too lazy to walk there and photograph it myself, so I got Google to do it for me.

The building was constructed in the 1960s as the Dunedin headquarters of Radio New Zealand for stations such as 4YA, 4YC, 4ZB and 4ZM (now known by other names). There’s a distinct Glide Time public servant vibe to the place – squat postwar modernist layout, unpainted wooden doors, blue parquet floors, pre-yellowed net curtains, and behind those perforated ceiling and wall tiles there’s probably a crapload of asbestos.

Public radio moved out in the 1990s when the government forced them to radically downsize their South Island presence, but the sold-off commercial arm (now TRN) stayed on until the university acquired the building outright a few years ago and kitted it out with that renowned (allegedly million-dollar) SSL mixer.

However, even the flashest gear is compromised without a good room to record in. Building large studios from scratch with all the right acoustic treatment and isolation is hideously expensive. That’s why it’s such a shame that so much of New Zealand’s postwar investment in music broadcasting has gone to waste: Auckland’s Helen Young Studios, Wellington’s Broadcasting House and Christchurch’s Radio New Zealand House are out of action through sale, demolition and act of God respectively.

Dunedin is lucky indeed to have retained their main studio, even if (as I understand) it lay fallow for many years. It’s not quite big enough for a Mahler 8 or an Alpine Symphony, but it’ll fit a decent-sized orchestra. 4YC/the Concert Programme made lots of studio recordings there back in the day, mostly chamber music. Here, for instance, is Terence Dennis playing David Griffiths’ Sonata in C in 1988:

So when I went in to record some tunes of my own that I’d written at Song Sale, I felt a bit of a connection to the past, given my employment history 2008-2012.

The short of it: here’s a romantic pop ballad called Love is a Four-Letter Word. I’m playing on a Bechstein grand piano, and Mike Holland is the sound engineer. Watch it below or listen on SoundCloud.

Love is a Four-Letter Word on SoundCloud

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Coming soon from the same session: A Song About Wees, The Racist Grandma Blues, How Many Legs Is Too Many Legs, Dolphins & Porpoises Rape & Pillage, and A Blues Song About Beards.

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.

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.)

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

Radiophonic and Electroacoustic

Incidental Music for Theatre

I’m presenting Settling the Score on Radio New Zealand Concert today. It’s the top 60 countdown.

Follow the progress as I update the webpage here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/score - better yet, listen live (how to listen, live audio stream here).

Five New Zealand pieces before lunchtime! That’s quite cool.

Also this:

Two of my last podcastable contributions to Radio New Zealand as an employee:

Yesterday was the broadcast date for my final piece for Upbeat, a show I’ve moved up the ranks with. Starting as fill-in assistant producer (for a day or two at a time), I eventually became fill-in producer (for a day or two at a time) and once or twice even fill-in presenter (for a day or two at a time). Along the way I supplied them with plenty of extra packages here and there – all sort of in addition to the job I’m actually employed to do.

This is audio about beer. I visited Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY as part of the Glimmerglass Festival.

(Upbeat, 22 December 2011)

The second piece I did live-to-air tonight, pre-show at Q Theatre before An Instant Kiwi Christmas. It’s great to work with all the Auckland improv crew again, and some new crew too. New musician Alika Downie and I combined for some double-muso action – she brought wind instruments, I brought a trumpet and a guitar, and we swapped keys duties.

Earlier this week, Bryan Crump from Nights on Radio New Zealand National put a call out to RNZ employees who were travelling at Christmas time, interviewing some of us for a segment called “Christmas Rush”. Bryan and his producer Rockin’ Robyn were good enough to schedule me first up, at 7:20pm. (My show started at 8.)

(Nights, 23 December 2011)

And if you don’t fully comprehend the reference in the title of this blog, watch this: