4 Nov 2019

Kenneth YOUNG: Te Māpouriki

From Music Alive, 8:01 pm on 4 November 2019

The Auckland première performance of a new work commissioned by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook's landing at Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa.

No caption

Photo: Dudley Meadows, Tairāwhiti Museum Te Whare Taonga o te Tairāwhiti

Kenneth Young’s new piece 'Te Māpouriki' or Dusk is the last of several works commissioned by the Orchestra to commemorate the 250th anniversary in 2019 of Captain James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand, and his encounters with Māori.

In composing this piece, Kenneth Young says that he had in mind the contradictions that Captain Cook had in his experience of the Pacific, as he grew older and looked back on what some might call his achievements and others might call his transgressions: the piece seeks to illustrate this dichotomy. 

Recorded by RNZ in Auckland Town Hall, 18 October 2019
Producer: Tim Dodd; Engineer: Adrian Hollay