Robin Toan will be asking the Manukau City Symphony Orchestra players to do more than blow, bow and strike their instruments as a result of being awarded the 2006 SOUNZ Community Commission. The young New Zealand composer will also be asking the players to chant and sing as part of the fanfare she will compose for the orchestra. Robin Toan will be asking the Manukau City Symphony Orchestra players to do more than blow, bow and strike their instruments as a result of being awarded the 2006 SOUNZ Community Commission. The young New Zealand composer will also be asking the players to chant and sing as part of the fanfare she will compose for the orchestra."We expect this to be a unique and explosive work that explores Maori/Pacific rhythms and sounds - the spirit of Manakau City", orchestra manager Pauline Logger-de Roos explains. "It will include improvisational elements which will require the orchestra not only to play, but also to use their voices. Robin is an active member of the music community in Manakau City, as teacher, performer and composer, and we will look forward to her spending time with the players in workshops and rehearsals leading up to the performance."

Robin is emerging as one of New Zealand's most promising young composers. She graduated from Auckland University with a Bachelors degree in composition and clarinet performance and currently working towards a Masters in Composition with John Psathas at the New Zealand School of Music, Wellington. She was the inaugural composer in residence for the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2005, and winner of numerous composition awards and prizes including the 2005 APRA $10,000 Professional Development Award.

The SOUNZ Community Commission is made possible through the generosity of an overseas donor who prefers to remain anonymous. The commission of $1500, administered by SOUNZ: the Centre for New Zealand Music, enables a community group and professional composer to collaborate in the creation and performance of a new work. Previous projects have included Jonathan Besser's New Dawn for the 2000 Millennium Parade in Gisborne, Helen Bowater's Hu for massed recorders and gamelan at the NZ Recorder Convention held in Christchurch 2002, and Ross Carey's Come Together, a choral work written in Braille as well as normal notation for the Homai Campus National Music Course Choir and premiered in July this year.

"It is always exciting to see the range of creative collaborations represented in the proposals each year," Scilla Askew, executive director of SOUNZ comments. "The SOUNZ Community Commission is all about bringing professional composers and community musicians together. Not only do both these parties benefit in the process, but also, when the result is performed, the audience get to share in the energy and vitality that is engendered in the commissioning of new music."

It is anticipated that Robin Toan's fanfare will be premiered by the Manukau City Symphony in mid-2007.