14 Apr 2014

Jack BODY: Eights on My Teaching

From NZ Composer Sessions, 12:00 am on 14 April 2014
Jack Body

Jack Body Photo: Gareth Watkins / Lilburn Trust / Wallace Arts Trust

Jack Body: Eights on My Teaching

A setting of a poem by Lou Harrison. Commissioned by the Cabrillo Music Festival, 1997 in honour of Lou Harrison’s 80th birthday

“Dear Lou

A small offering for your grand occasion – I’m sorry I can’t be there to share it. And apologies for not first seeking your permission to use your beautiful EIGHTS ON MY TEACHING, but that would have spoilt the surprise! And so I hereby ask you in retrospect. It is a poem which I am truly beginning to identify with. Like you, I enjoy my contact with young people through teaching, though I sometimes despair for them, and lament the limits of my capacity to help them as far as I would wish.

But the poem also has another close association for me; I notice that you began to write it in Wellington, and perhaps even at a time that you were staying in my home? I would like to imagine so.

A big birthday hug to you from Wellington!” 

– Jack

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Jack Body (narrator), Hamish McKeich (conductor).

Jack Body’s music covers almost all genres, including solo and chamber music, orchestral music, music-theatre, music for dance and film as well as electroacoustic music. A fascination with the music and cultures of Asia, particularly Indonesia, was been a strong influence. He was commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia, NZ String Quartet, NZSO, BBC Scottish Orchestra and many other groups, and wrote three works for the Kronos Quartet.

 

Recorded by RNZ Concert for the 2014 NZ Composer Sessions.

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