What Have You Done to Your Rivers?
Length: 12'30"
Orchestral songs for mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists
Instrumentation: 3(1pic).2.2.2 - 2.2.2(btbn).0 - timp.perc(3) - solo m-s, br - strings
What Have You Done to Your Rivers? Performed by Jenny Wollerman (soprano) and Robert Tucker (baritone) with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conductor Hamish McKeich, at the NZ Composer Sessions, Michael Fowler Centre, 1 October 2020. Audio recorded by RNZ Concert. Film funded by NZ On Air.
Written in 2018, What Have You Done to Your Rivers? is comprised of three orchestral songs based on the poetry of Cantabrian writers Blanche Baughan and Ursula Bethell. Both writers depict the beauty and vitality of the New Zealand landscape while calling the audience to reflect upon the treatment of our now contaminated rivers. The piece intends to highlight the pollution of the New Zealand landscape, in particular the rivers of Canterbury, and dwell on the grievous consequences of this neglect.
The first song, ‘What is the River?,’ uses excerpts from Blanche Baughan’s A Bush Section in which she marvels at the ‘running river’ and calls others to listen closely to its stirring. The second is taken from Ursula Bethell’s By the River Ashley, basking in the music of the Waimakariri as the “ripples and silence sing together.” The work ends with Bethell’s sobering turn as the once sweet voice of nature begins to lament and probe its listeners: “what have you done to your rivers?”
This work was recorded by the NZSO as part of the NZ Composer Sessions in 2020.
To enquire about this piece or to purchase the score, contact the composer here.