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Vol. 27 Issue 1 Reviews | Reviews > Events > | |
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New Zealand Sonic Art | ||
Compact discs, 2000 (NZSA 2000), 2001
(NZSA Volume II); available from The University of Waikato, Department
of Music, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand MDWU1201; World Wide
Web www.waikato.ac.nz/music/nzsonicart/.
The first two discs pay homage to one of New Zealand’s most famous pioneers of electronic music: composer and teacher, Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001). During the 1930s, after winning a composition prize offered by Percy Grainger, Mr. Lilburn attended the Royal College of Music in London and became a student of Ralph Vaughan Williams. In the 1960s he visited Darmstadt and also worked in the electronic music studios at the University of Toronto. In 1966 he established the Electronic Music Studio at Victoria University in Wellington, the first in New Zealand or Australia. It was in 1975 that he turned his attention exclusively toward the composition of electronic music. It’s a pity none of Mr. Lilburn’s pieces have yet been included in the series. As compilations go, these CDs work very well in terms of unity of mood, technique, and pacing. The final mastering is very well done and provides a smooth listening experience from beginning to end. New Zealand Sonic Art 2000, the first in the series, features works by John Young, John Elmsly, Michael Norris, Miriama Young, Chris Cree Brown, John Rimmer, Matthew Suttor, Lissa Meridan, and Dugal McKinnon. Emphasizing electronic and digital processes presented in refined technical detail, the works on the CD are all consistent with high quality academic digital music studio production. As a point of researching influences, it would be interesting to compare some of Mr. Lilburn’s electroacoustic works with the pieces in the current collection, but his LP recordings are now out of print. The Kiwi-Pacific 3-LP boxed set, New Zealand Electronic Music (KIWI SLD-44/46, 1975), for example, featured some of Mr. Lilburn’s early electronic works and showed some of his experimentation in the medium he valued so highly, the new found love of which he apparently passed along to many young composers. Another LP, Soundscape (KIWI SLD-59, 1979), was entirely works by Mr. Lilburn, but both are unavailable, and have not yet been remastered for digital media.
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