String Quartet No.4 ‘Sketches of Aotearoa’ (2025)
String Quartet version or Ensemble version for String Quartet, Guitar and Irish trad musicians. Duration 12 mins.
I The Journey
II Wither Hills Vines
III Makorori Surf
IV The Hare in the Vineyard
Composed for the New Zealand String Quartet
Version for String Quartet, Guitar and Irish trad musicians premiered in Whisky & Wood, Wellington on 14th March 2025
Premiered by the New Zealand String Quartet, Dave Flynn (guitar), Em Griffiths (fiddle) and Duncan Davidson (accordion)
Programme Note
‘Sketches of Aotearoa’, blends the sounds of Ireland and New Zealand/Aotearoa*. The piece is in four connected movements, each inspired by my travels around New Zealand. ‘The Journey’ opens the piece with a driving rhythm and quartet sounds inspired by New Zealand birdsong. Tui, korimako/bellbird and rirororo/grey warbler are among the tuneful birds that populate this opening section, and return with other birds in short interludes between movements. ‘The Journey’ was literally composed on the road and it reflects the feeling of driving around New Zealand’s beautiful landscapes.
‘Wither Hills Vines’, is in the style of an Irish hornpipe, and it is a piece I composed after visiting this beautiful vineyard in Blenheim.
1st violin takes the lead with the winding melody and the rest of the quartet accompany with distant birdsounds and droning harmonies.
The next movement ‘Makorori Surf’ was composed for the birthday of a good friend of my wife and I called Ninja. She loves to surf at Makorori Beach near Gisborne and this piece gives the feeling of surfing on undulating waves.
‘The Hare in the Vineyard’ ends the suite with a type of tune I call a ‘clipped slide’. The Irish ‘slide’ dance is usually in 12/8, this piece clips off one beat to create a slide-style tune in the complex rhythm of 11/8. I composed this piece after seeing numerous hares leaping about among Marlborough vineyards at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. This lends a suitably upbeat, fast finale to my Sketches of Aotearoa.
* People outside of New Zealand may not know what Aotearoa means. It translates as ‘The Land of the long white cloud’ and it is the Maori name for New Zealand, now commonly used alongside New Zealand to refer to this wonderful country.
