The poetry of writer Janet Frame will be celebrated in a marriage of music and words in The Poet at ERUPT Taupo Festival in May.

Taking the theme of text in music forms, New Zealand's world-class national chamber choir Tower Voices New Zealand and this country's foremost chamber ensemble, the New Zealand String Quartet, will both perform works individually before joining forces for the grand finale, The Poet: a song cycle, composed by Jenny McLeod.

Drawing on 11 of Janet Frame's poems, Jenny McLeod, who will be attending the show in Taupo, says the song cycle has "many, many different moods! There is constant change, every line of the text, every new keyword, has its own music."

Win double passes: The Big Idea will be interviewing Jenny McLeod next week. If you have a question for her about The Poet then send them in to go into the draw to win double passes to the performance at ERUPT on Saturday 17 May.
Read on for entry detailsThe poetry of writer Janet Frame will be celebrated in a marriage of music and words in The Poet at ERUPT Taupo Festival in May.

Taking the theme of text in music forms, New Zealand's world-class national chamber choir Tower Voices New Zealand and this country's foremost chamber ensemble, the New Zealand String Quartet, will both perform works individually before joining forces for the grand finale, The Poet: a song cycle, composed by Jenny McLeod.

Drawing on 11 of Janet Frame's poems, Jenny McLeod, who will be attending the show in Taupo, says the song cycle has "many, many different moods! There is constant change, every line of the text, every new keyword, has its own music."

Win double passes: The Big Idea will be interviewing Jenny McLeod next week. If you have a question for her about The Poet then send them in to go into the draw to win double passes to the performance at ERUPT on Saturday 17 May.
Read on for entry detailsThe Poet song cycle was commissioned by Tower Voices New Zealand, and the piece is at the heart of a range of classical offerings at ERUPT having premiered in March at the 2008 NZ International Arts Festival in Wellington.

Jenny McLeod says that "in the corridors and foyer afterwards there was an excitement, you could see and feel it, people were lit up, a sense that together they had experienced something new, and something truly of our own."

In a career spanning over 45 years, McLeod has garnered respect as one of our most naturally gifted and singular voices. Both Tower Voices, formed in 1998 under Dr Karen Grylls as a nationally selected chamber choir of the highest calibre, and the New Zealand String Quartet, have distinguished themselves nationally and internationally as the 'elite of the elite'.

Of Janet Frame, the composer says "Well, first she's a Kiwi, which gives me as another Kiwi a particular claim on and interest in her work, and if not our greatest poet probably our greatest writer."

A nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature, The Pocket Mirror, Frame's first collection of poems, was published in 1967 (Literary Fund Award for Achievement, 1969). She was awarded the poetry category posthumously at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards for her second collection, The Goose Bath, three years after her death.

McLeod says "I love her down-to-earth imagery, she often uses domestic or household images that are not at all 'poetic' in the flowery sense (one reviewer even considered - absurdly to my mind - that you can't set to music a line of poetry about pulling out a bath plug! Of course you can!); I love her broad range of human emotions, and the truth and depth of what she says, also her sense of humour, and the way many different meanings can accumulate as you dwell on a single line or verse; and her freedom from conventional metres and patterns."

The challenge for the composer was finding balance and texture for the unusual combination of a choir and string quartet, ensuring the words could be heard, and she says composing something worthy of Janet Frame.

Jenny McLeod selected Cherry Tree, Crusts, Some Will Be Burning, Thoughts, In A Garnet World, Prejudice, Chant, Snow and three works with 'poet' in their title to be played in the song cycle.

She says "well, I chose all of them because I like each one so much - but in the context of 'The Poet' as a celebratory festival piece in tribute to artists generally, I think my favourite lines would be these, the closing lines of the last poem in the cycle:

"Old living poets
stay faithfully camouflaged in their own sky.
It may even be forgotten they have been shining
for so long.
The reminder comes upon their falling
extinguished into the earth.
The sky is empty, the sun and moon
have gone away,
there are not enough street bulbs, glow-worms,
fireflies to give light
and for a time it seems there will be no more stars."
(Poets, from The Goose Bath)

Entry details

Email: The editor@thebigidea.co.nz with the subject line The Poet tickets
Include: A question, your TBI username, your full name, contact details and the concert you can attend.
Eligibility: To be eligible you must be a member of The Big Idea. You must be able to attend the show and tickets are non-transferable.
Entries: Need to be received by midnight Thursday May 1.
Winners: Will be contacted by email on May 6.

Performance schedule

The Poet
Tower Voices New Zealand and New Zealand String Quartet
Saturday 17 May, 3pm
The Crater Room, Great Lake Centre
Bookings at Ticketek

Part 1
Schubert Der Tod und das Madchen - Soloist Robert Wiremu with the New Zealand String Quartet

Schubert Quartet in D minor D810 Death and the Maiden - New Zealand String Quartet

Interval

Part 2
TOWER Voices New Zealand (Artistic Director: Karen Grylls)

Jan Sandstrom Gloria
Purcell Hear my Prayer
Chilcott My Prayer
Bonato Audi Filia
Bach Lobet den Herrn BWV 230 (conducted by James Tibbles, Assistant Musical Director)
Sven David Sandstrom Lobet den Herrn

Interval

Part 3
TOWER Voices New Zealand and the New Zealand String Quartet
Jenny McLeod The Poet: A Song Cycle

ERUPT Taupo Festival is the reincarnation of the biennial Lake Taupo Arts Festival, switching this year from a February date to the autumn hue of May, and featuring 11 days of world class comedy, theatre, music, cabaret, film, visual arts, literature, gourmet food and school and community events.

ERUPT Lake Taupo Festival Programme

24/04/08