...which is Maori for "cicada." And it finishes off with everyone clicking these. It was originally written for amateur orchestra. (gives TG a sly glance) You have to be careful with these orchestral players! Everyone clicks at the end, and then a tape of the real thing fades in. (she looks out the window at the huge chorus going at it hammer and tongs in her backyard) It's very much the New Zealand bush sound. It wasn't until February, late summer, until they started. You don't really realize they're there at first. I'd be sitting here working, and it was silent. Then one day I heard one. Then this chorus sets up. Sometimes it can be almost deafening. You go for a walk in the bush, close your eyes, and you get this great wall of amazing texture. It's not clicks anymore, it's more like one of Xenakis's massed string textures, really. I always liked that sound anyway, the individual and then the resulting texture is something I've gone for.

Dan Poynton wants a piece for piano - but not necessarily on the keys! Well, we talked about ping-pong balls and clickers, and one piece I'd written he found - Tingling Strings - "rather unfriendly for the pianist." It's a funny concept, that, "unfriendly for the players." Or, "ungrateful for the instrument," when of course, that sonority might be the very thing the composer wants. So you have the pianist leaping around the keyboard. Well, actually, I wrote it at the piano, which is the only instrument I can play a bit. And yet he described it as "nonpianistic." Which is interesting: he's a guy who can take on anything. So I've been thinking about sounds for that, and thinking about how to avoid the keys, and I don't know if that's so much of a good idea. But the sounds I've been thinking about are bell-like sounds, because of a phrase that's stayed in my mind, "Ring true." A lovely phrase, really. I was reading a book on Sufism one night, and it said , "be yourself, ring true;" and I started summoning up all of these bell-like sounds with the piano in mind. But then, of course, the piano can't make all the sounds that you want it to. That's what's so marvelous about orchestral writing, you can always get what you want, sonority-wise. But bells - this little bell I had as a child, for example... (she rings a small handbell, and a sympathetic resonance occurs) Oh! Did you hear that?

Yeh, yeh, yeh, isn't it fascinating, all these things? When I was sick in bed when I was little, mum used to say here's your little brass bell. [It was a] big house - so I could ring if I needed assistance. That "rings true" in my memories as one of those things, so I thought, "how can I get the things playing on the strings?" (she plays a high octave tremolo on the piano relative to the third partial of the bell) That doesn't quite do it, does it? (she tremolos again pensively) It was that, or whether I should do something [external], because I've done quite a few things for the piano where there are tappings or knockings or whistlings. And I'm always trying to push; I never quite get out of a single instrument exactly what I want, I always want to push it off another bridge or extend it.

As you know, birdsong figures quite largely in my music. The most obvious native New Zealand bird which has a striking call is the Tui, and I've used the tui call in quite a lot of pieces. I was out at Bethels Beach, a fantastic west coast beach, one day with a friends, and we were listening to tuis which were answering each other in a sort of (plays a series of fifths and octaves) type thing, and so I'm working on that as the motive for the beginning. And then I envisage perhaps these (tinkles high octave again) coming in. And then just this morning I was thinking about those great big huge ship bells, or big church bells, and how they're actually made, and the sound of them, what are the intervals and so on. And I was reading about bells, and found that they are actually made of "bell metal"which is a special [alloy] of bronze: four parts copper, one part tin. Then I was thinking of that lovely chord in Stockhausen's Stimmung in which the chords carry out the tone for twenty-five minutes - a fantastic piece, one of those pieces of its time which you can't ever repeat again, because it's just one chord. And [I have been] mucking around with harmonics and the sort of thing where you depress the keys silently and then (slams the Stimmung chord suddenly).

So that partly sums up my approach to composing. There are emotional/philosophical leanings, and timbral pushings, and flickers of recognition of sound events or extramusical devices, but very rarely a story line. That's why I haven't done any opera. I don't do songs, or settings, although I do currently have ideas for a choral Requiem bubbling away.

No, that's right: no narrative as such. I know a lot of composers find it helpful to have a narrative. Lyell Cresswell, who is a wonderful composer - we call him a "New Zealand composer," he calls himself a "New Zealand composer," but he lives in Scotland, unfortunately - has a piece where there is a crazed tremolo on high strings that's called "The Pumpkin Massacre." He got that idea from a story he read about something that happened in the Maori wars.

Then you come back to the conundrum of "do you tell the audience in the program note where you got the inspiration?" If there was a story, does it matter that they know it? Does the Cresswell piece work equally well without being called "The Pumpkin Massacre?" Because we know, don't we, that people will have a great deal more potential empathy for a piece if they know what's behind it.

That's probably right for most people. I personally don't find it a difficulty. I want to have new experiences with music. When I go to a concert, it's a concert with a new piece of music in it, generally. When I realized that I wanted to be a composer, it was partly because I was awakening to the fact that I had no problem with new music. At a certain time I started going to university concerts here in Auckland and I heard some pieces, some Boulez and Stockhausen and Davidovsky and quite a lot of pieces for instrument and tape. When I looked back on it, I thought, "How fascinating! I want to be part of those sounds, part of the culture of people who make those sounds."

So I don't have trouble, in that way, of confronting new music. I'm dying to be challenged and taken beyond the experiences that I've already had.

Or enlightened somehow. Really, it's neither a positive nor a negative thing. I've noticed that we're all guilty of [qualitative judgements], because post-concert you get [the question] "What did you think?" "Oh, didn't like, did like, didn't like, did like, great, good, yes, terrible, blah." I liked the times I had quite bemused reactions to music; in other words, you experience it. Particularly with a new piece: you hear it and you just take it on. You don't think: "Oh yes, like that - oh no, didn't like that." You experienced it! And I suppose that's the most neutral response that one can have. I guess I have people doing that with my music, which is fine. Of course, as a composer you hope that that neutrality is pushed, and a response is formed one way or the other. One way or the other.

But, as for like and dislike, I'm always rather annoyed by that concept. I always remember that John Cage statement - there are so many marvelous ones that he has - in two variations. One of which is something like: "If I don't like a piece of music, it means that I really don't like myself." I don't like the way that it and I respond, as in difficult relationships within the family: whereas individual people get along perfectly well with others, it's just the interrelationship between those two [that doesn't work]. Then the other variation is from Florent Schmitt: "when I don't like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely;" which I think is a great piece of advice, because we've all been guilty of simply wiping a piece off because we don't respond to it immediately.

Now why would that be? I've been to concerts and felt quite offended. In fact, it happened this morning. I have a CD of Michael Torke and for some silly reason I'd built too much hope around it. I put it on and I was so disappointed. I was so disappointed.

Yes, I suppose! Whereas a composer whom I've really being enjoying of late is Michael Daugherty, who's got the same sort of bravado and confidence and freshness, but, boy, really does something interesting musically. I've always been interested in pieces of music that have colorful instrumentation and do things that are slightly unexpected. So you might get antiphonal cymbals - it isn't a huge deal - but just one element like that in a piece. Or just brass and a woodblock, something like that. You have to make magic out of whatever you use.

I was planning student's lectures this year and thinking that if there's one other word that you can really use as a synonym for music, it would be "magic." I mean, on a simple level, when you're assessing student's work, they come and ask "Why was this a B-plus instead of an A-minus?" Well, when you're dealing with intangibles, it boils down to whether or not the magic is there.

Yes, it makes one come over all modest and embarrassed, because I'd have to have had a more obvious public recognition of the fact that I was a mentor. Certainly with students of my own, attitudes that I've recognized, feedback at composer's workshops, and things I've read, I've found that in New Zealand I'm recognized as having stood for something. And whether that's a combination of the basic [elements] of "female composer" and "making it in the system," I don't know. I'm a female composer teaching at university, of which there aren't many. But, of course, one is happy to be a mentor, that's what that means. You'd rather have your music respected, but then again I'd be happy if I thought I was respected even by people who didn't necessarily have a positive feeling towards the music. I think I am. Yeh.

The most rewarding thing about being a composition teacher is those students who come in to tutorial looking a bit anxious and slightly desperate for guidance - and as composers we all know how that feels - and get a sudden gleam when you achieve that rare symbiosis whereby they receive what you're able to give them. And it's often just a little spark, and I remember this sort of thing myself with John Rimmer when he'd say, "Look out there. (points out the window) Look at the line of that hill," and I'd think, hmm. He'd say, "You're trying to write an orchestral climax? It's not like the pyramid of Cheops, it's like Rangitoto volcano." (she delineates a melodic curve with both hands and voice in the shape of a sprawling mountain) Ever since that Rangitoto experience I've thought of form and climax in music as being a totally different thing.

It's an attitude. Not, "let's look at the notes and play the harmonies and work out that diminished minor thing into a major chord." That's not my approach anyway. Students always starts a piece for piano right there. (plays a few chords around middle C) Well, the piano stretches all the way to there! (slams the outermost keys hard) What's wrong with starting a piece up there [or down there]? (stops for a moment, listening - birds out in the yard chirp in response to the piano) Of course, one hopes that the insights can get deeper than that! They go away and they say (gasps dramatically) "ohh, thanks! Thanks! That was fantastic." You know they're going away keyed up with the same exuberance and creative spirit that you have yourself when things are going well. [Composing's] not an easy thing to do. Who would do it? We often sit around, composer friends, and we always end by saying "who the hell would do this? It's far too difficult!" - knowing, of course, that we have to and will keep doing it.

No, not all. It's fascinating to hear more informed responses to one's music like that. Yes, what do we do with line? Line is quite difficult. I think with clarinets, you're already blessed with a feeling of flowing sonority, and "mellifluity," if that's a word. That was all in mind throughout the entire piece.

Yes, line: how do you get away from just going up and down? A friend of mine wrote an orchestral piece and I told her "the melodies (or contour, which I prefer to say) go up and down, up and down." She just laughed, because there was nothing to say: things just go up or down or get repeated. But there's a skill that some composers have in that drawing of contour so that things don't get tedious. Or that things stay natural, though the material mightn't be natural. For instance, one of the clarinetists had to teach herself flutter-tonguing, which is interesting. Isn't it great when a performer rises to the occasion for a composer by improving technically? Hopefully she'll get to use the technique again.

So I'm interested in what you say. I like the sense of inevitability in a line. And certainly the "super-clarinet" idea, the E-flat, B-flat and bass all sounding as one: again, it's that conception of them as one big sonority. Rather separate instruments with individual ranges, I thought of it as being one big instrument. Of course, once you establish an attitude of a thing, it permeates the work. It's a bit like this piano piece: I've established a bell in my unconscious. It's going to be there whether I like it or not. I think that same concept applies to the musical workings, because you made the point about the clarinet sonority and the inevitability of the musical material: everything seemed to be running its natural course. And that's a very magical and intangible area, isn't it? That's the thing that's very hard to teach.

That's the thing, at best, that I find myself being able to do well. [Notwithstanding] what other people think, when I listen to that piece myself [it illustrates to me that] when you make the right moves, and the music is moving in time, what should be happening in the music for you then happens, whether "should" means a shock tactic or a continuation or a repetition. And really, that's the nub of composing well, I think: what should come next? So if you take the extreme example of minimalism on one hand, you know what's going to happen in Steve Reich's Phase pieces, but it's meant - without any attempt at being mystical - meant to happen in step.

Then you have Stockhausen with "Klavierstücke" and all those pieces where you start wherever you like and move through the pages , or "Kontakte:" a lot of the most extreme examples of these things have already been done, haven't they? If you think of minimalism as being extreme rhythmic predictability, and moment form as being "anything is possible at any given moment," that's why it's increasingly hard for any one of us to keep going and do something new, but I don't think that's one's main worry.

And then you have someone like Messiaen, [with whom] you never know where you are and what's going to happen next, but you trust. And it's that: I want to trust that some composers are able to evoke, - or is it invoke? - [something] in me, and it doesn't have to be something tried and true. One trusts that Beethoven is in control of his material. Okay, some of his, say, codas might go on a bit long for some people. I've never personally felt that Beethoven goes on too long. With Messiaen I have that same trust, even though with some of his music, he gets a bit too protracted. But that's the sort of composer he is, so I respect him for it. You get the impression that here's a composer in control and that you trust he will be doing the right thing.

So, trust: trusting of material. Trusting of your own material and being in control of it. It's a funny thing, control, because the creative process is a whole balance between letting the music take its own course and holding it back for whatever reason of your own, and that's a very odd state of affairs.

Yes, I do feel that pressure quite strongly, because, I suppose from involvement with teaching and knowing performers and being perceived as a certain [entity]. For example, last year, I wrote two [highly] varied works, one of which was "Pendulums of Blue," a big, intense, sombre orchestral work. The other happened to be, not trivial, but a fun piece called "To Ethel," based on the character of [composer Dame] Ethel Smyth, and I had Gareth Farr dressed up in drag and riding on the stage on rollerblades. We cooked up this idea between us, and it was [scored] for four saxophones (Saxcess).

I'm ready to acknowledge [that it] probably won't be done again. It was a piece that I wrote in a stressful situation, and was at best very entertaining. I thought that Gareth was great and, oh, we just had a good time laughing about it.

It was one of the most difficult years of my life, because I'd just had a major marriage breakup after a twenty-three year relationship. Then I have a mild recurring bipolar situation - I was plunged into a dreadful depression last year. But I had this big commission to get out for the NZSO. Not big; it was only twelve or fifteen minutes, but it seemed to loom large. Again, it's that pressure thing. "Oh, my god, a big piece! For that orchestra, it'll be heard there, and what will people think, and are they expecting?!" And in the end, I really thought, "Look, I'm feeling terrible!" It sounds melodramatic after the event, but I could hardly write it, and I've had a few pieces that were like that. One was "Tumbling Strains," which was a very intense string piece written in a bad depression; and the other was this "Pendulums of Blue," sounds very gloomy. So I just let that all come out.

So there was that and there was "Ethel." You either just go ahead and do what comes naturally, or you temper things a bit. The price you pay with that, naturally, is that you offend. My best critic and a very good friend of mine didn't like the "Ethel" piece at all. And it sort of hurts a bit and then you get over it. The danger is that you then try to please that person or that section of people with the next piece. My father, whom I'm very close to, said to me "If you're not careful, you'll get branded as a very lugubrious person," referring to the Other Echoes orchestral fanfare, which was quite solemn. "Why don't you lighten up?" he said, trying to be helpful. "Write something that's a bit more fun and accessible." And I know that attitude, but if it won't come out in the next piece, you can't force it.

Oh, that's right. I have to say, I haven't had really bad criticisms: more for student works, where I took more risks. I was "trying things out" more. As I've gotten older as a composer, I've found that the music wants to be simpler in a way, and I'm not desperate to try things out, sonority-wise or exploring instrumental ranges. When I sit down at the piano, very simple fifths are coming out, and yet I have to trust that. It comes back to trust. But, you're aware as you get older and more experienced of so much more, like anyone in any situation in life, that it's a hindrance. Whereas, the more piano literature that you know, the less able you are to possibly do anything, and you lose a sense of freshness that you had at the beginning. I remember I wrote a piece, 'cause I didn't compose up until I went to university when I went straight into the second year or so, that was then played by members of the NZSO because I sent it in for a young composer's thing. It was a piece that I'd not just thrown together by any means, but I'd done terribly freshly; these long, growing woodwind lines and things happening. And I could never do that piece again, because now I know far too much.

That's why one respects an artist like Picasso in that being able to just get a plate - as he apparently did at mealtime, he painted on everything - and do a simple painting on it. Uninhibited: the uninhibited, immediate act of creation, which as a composer is quite difficult unless you're an improviser. Sometimes it's easy just to be writing for an instrument you don't play and then you can just think. "Trumpet: (hums upward line) then just think of the shape of the sound (scats a little riff)." Then you can go and translate it. But it's that directness that's quite hard to capture.

Yes. Not that one wants to be awarding prizes and creating categories as such. That would be antithetical to the whole idea of composing, really. Sometimes I feel a bit inhibited in not being able to immediately have the sound. I suppose my version, not being a performer and having to battle introverted qualities in me, is to get out onto a beach and to summon up those sounds, which is my equivalent of the jazz keyboardist or fiddler just picking up their instrument and playing and having it all there. In that way I get slightly envious of composer-performers, occasionally, because when I sit down to play anything, nothing comes out that I would want to play in front of anyone! And yet I've got my letters, you know, my piano diploma, but I've forgotten all that.

Yeh, so there are all sorts of funny inhibitions there. But with composers, as you know, some of us who write the most corruscatingly terrifying musical textures can be the quietest. most reticent, shy people you've met.

Well, I'm interested in the whole area of depression and creative people, anyway. It is quite relevant for particularly writers and composers. But I think it's natural, if you're a creative person of some depth, that there's going to be some swinging between extreme emotions within the process of trying to realize that creativity. Certainly, I know I can go from very low depressive feelings - even when I'm not properly depressed - to sheer joyfulness within the space of a morning. The piece will just not move, and you think, "well, should I give this up? I'm not really a composer," and then you put a piece on by one of your contemporaries that's bloody good, and you think: "Oh. Just give it up. Give It Up!" Then you make yourself try to feel better by putting on some of your own stuff or somebody says something, and you think, "Yeh, perhaps I'm all right." Then something starts to move, and this whole sense of relief, and belief in the future floods in.

A lot of naturally talented musicians tend to think 'Oh, [this is easy!]-[because] at Stage One they do well, and Stage Two. And actually, not many of those ones necessarily keep on with the composing. It's more the people who've got a sort of a spark that you can see. They go to concerts, they're interested - they're not necessarily the ones with facile talent. It's often an attitude thing, they have to build up confidence. There's a bit of a struggle going on.

I certainly don't believe in the 'agonizing struggle' school for everyone, composers aren't necessarily all like that. [But there's always] a bit of a struggle going on, a bit of a fight inside, and a bit of that sense of extremism.

I know! But I've given up [on wincing]. Again, that's the good thing about getting a bit older - you cease to worry about what people may think about what you like. And I thought 'yeah, this is OK.' I think that I get that permission, not only from my own confidence, but by reading about other people. I suppose I was thinking before you came that I do tend to read a lot about other artists or musicians or whomever and once they make a little insight into some perceived weakness, it's an admittance in their own life. I thought, 'Wow, yes, I did find that it's common to us all.' And particularly creatively; you know, John Cage saying something about not really understanding harmony. Or Lutoslawski saying 'I could never write an opera. Why would you want to get somebody up on stage singing a story?' That sort of thing! You think, 'Good! Thank God for that...if he can say it!' Or if somebody admits that they don't really like a piece that you're supposed to like - or [if] I find I'd rather listen to Bob Dylan than certain operas - you can have the strength.

And that comes back to that idea of mentoring in a broader sense. One of the things I enjoy about students is that you can say that and slightly surprise them. And of course, with a bit of experience, you can do that quite well, and it works effectively by [demonstration], playing them Jimi Hendrix, [for instance]. If they want to talk about extended techniques, you can always be one step ahead of them, because the more you know about things, the more nothing shocks you. Anyway, I digress a bit there.

The choral one is a women's voice choral version of Chaos 2. Again, [it expresses] similar attitudes to what I've been saying. [In the case of Chaos 1], Andrew Uren, [a] local bass clarinet player, wanted a piece [and] asked me for something. Marvellous instrument, what do you write? There are so many obvious things to do, so many composers have written solo works for the instrument. The birdsong thing comes naturally, so I started thinking about derived sonorities, the extremes of registers, certain calls, certain motifs, and the fact that the bass clarinet can surprisingly and ironically play high very well. Because one thinks of that beautiful low hollow lugubrious creamy sort of tone [as being characteristic], but not necessarily of these high penetrating sounds. So there's a lot in there that's quite high. And because I always like pushing a solo instrument to its extremes of range, that happens in that piece quite a lot. And I love sounds like clickings and, what does he do? - tongue-clicks....tongue-slaps. We worked a bit together on those sort of sounds, taking quite a lot of inspiration from recorded bird calls. There's a little (whistles birdcall) - that one - that's one I recorded of a whatever-it-was (doesn't really matter....) and that's found its way into Chaos 1. And then the 'HOOM!' of the kakapo [NZ flightless bird], that very 'HOOOM!'- that very low note.

I vocalise with these pieces a lot. Because those are sounds that I like! And in [Chaos 2], the vocal one: Jane Manning was coming out from Britain, and here was one of the world's great exponents of contemporary vocal music, and would I write her a piece? And I thought, 'God, what am I going to do for voice? I don't like using words in music, they don't sit very comfortably in my mind together, texts and music. I don't really do it. So my way round it was to take the approach of voice as vocal instrument. And then again the birdsong thing came along.

So I started at home, to myself: "HRRRRRH!" Great! OK:'Hrrrh!' Hmmm. And then figuring out exactly how it would work (accompanies vocal noises on piano) and what [I would] have to do to tell the performers to do, on the page. But all that sort of comes naturally to me, even though I'm not a singer. The [choral] singers had a lot of trouble doing sounds like [demonstrates sung tongue-clicks and pitched rolled-'R' whirrs], because all these things were trained out of them, and yet I could show them how to do it quite well. Strange, that sort of turn-around.

So yes, they're pieces of a certain type. They're exploring sonorities really. I don't know whether to go ahead [with] Chaos of Delight 4, or not.

Yes, that's right. Musicians will often talk about whether you have music on in the background at home. I don't know what I do myself. I like the silence usually, because I'm thinking about what I'm doing. I couldn't have have background music or it would interfere with what I was composing. But then other times, you want an atmosphere: when you've got people coming round for dinner and you're having pasta and so you put on something Italian - as it were! It just depends. Composers as we know get infuriated by Muzak!

But yes it's a contradiction obviously. I mean, there was an occasion the other day and I had a piece on the radio just when some friends of mine happened to arrive, and I said, 'Oh, a piece of mine's on.' And I was going to turn it off, and I said, 'Look, you've heard it, and I've heard it.' and [someone] said, 'No, I'm keen to listen...' Then everybody who was there had to politely listen. I said 'Look, it's all right! You don't have to...' But I know there's an embarrassment factor. If I put on something, I have to be the person who'll say 'Oh look! it's OK to talk during this bit.'

But you know when composers gather, there's that level of respect that goes the opposite way where you just know, you're just silent, you're just absolutely hooked in, and it would be totally disrespectful to make a sound while that piece was going on.

But anyway, there's all those issues of etiquette and societal differences, aren't there. Because the concert hall situation is sometimes so damned unnatural; you're sitting there -dead silence, the whole clapping thing is so institutionalised that people are divided into the clever-dicks who try to get in early because they know what's coming and then the [ones who need a jolt to wake up]. Sometimes I find concert-going a bit fraught because of that general institutionalization.

I can't figure out what the best way of listening is. Occasionally I go to a concert and I think, "Why am I sitting here with my eyes closed? I've paid to come and (laughs) see this orchestra, you know, have this experience live, and yet I could be at home listening to a recording of a superior performance." I don't know, I try not to take too hard and fast a rule about these things.

[Helicopter flies overhead]

By the way, this is one of the joys of living out here, is that this is part of the local soundscape, the Whenuapai airbase. It's a military airbase, so you get everything from Hercules to Friendship jets and Orions. A lot of different sounds. And in a way, living out in the so-called country can be quite noisy. I mean, the cicadas are quite loud in the general scheme of things, which is quite strange.

This is a thing I say to students which is really only just an extension of what I think about as a composer - anything and everything can influence what you're doing. Because when you said that, I thought of Ligeti's piece for a hundred metronomes, "Poem Symphonique," which I've seen done. [It's] such a good idea and such fun, and again, one of those pieces that nobody can recreate. Just all of these metronomes set up, different tempi, and left to die away. Wonderful thing.

So if you close your mind to influences, you've had it, really. I mean, even the ugliness of those power cables, you could turn it into a six-line stave anyway....you know, you think, "A six line stave, hang on, what note would go there? That would create a different sort of chord." You know? I mean, it doesn't matter where you get your ideas or influences from, it's what the hell you do next, really.