Little Bushman Live in Concert with the NZSO (album)

One of the great collaborations of my journey. Kia Kaha Warren, Joe, Rick, and Tom.

After working with Serj on his Elect the Dead Symphony project, the members of NZ's Little Bushman reached out about a similar project with the Auckland Philharmonia.

This very quickly became a bigger-than-ben-hur undertaking as I realised that this group was incredibly creative onstage and often played with not just the structure but the very feel of each of their songs every time they played. The first, and greatest, challenge was actually defining some of the songs, especially the bigger ones like Jimi, or the epic Little Bird.

I listened to all the recordings available (most of which were live) and pieced together versions (arrangements that were essentially edits of various digital audio files) and sought the band's approval to proceed from there. I could see the struggle in them - to commit to fixed versions, when one of their incredible strengths was spontaneity and continuous adaptation. It presented challenges and opportunities. The challenge was how to retain the maximum amount of freedom onstage for them when playing with the orchestra, while not stepping too far outside the orchestra's comfort zone. My solution (gamble) was to make the conductor essentially a 5th member of the band and hand over a degree of structural control that could be triggered on the fly as the band moved through extended solos, or looser parts of songs.

The onus was on the conductor to decide in realtime how the energy and the intensity were ebbing and flowing and choose from a range of 'next steps' in the unfolding structure at any given moment. This was inevitably a compromise but one that mostly worked well, although a substantial amount of rehearsal time was sacrificed to 'working things out'.

From my perspective as a witness (not a participant) in the rehearsals and performance, I've never see such a gulf between two musical styles. These are the places where a composer can find themself in a learning space that is unique to their practice. As an observer I watched Little Bushman and the Auckland Philharmonia (and later, Little Bushman and the NZSO) gradually coalesce into a meta-ensemble that delivered an extraordinarily powerful experience for the audience (after the Auckland concert one audience member said to me "during Little Bird I saw God" - it is epic....).

Even though both shows were a huge success, I don't think I ever felt the two sides fuse together into one. I'll always wonder if that was due to my failing.

It was an immense challenge, bringing together two very different musical cultures. One grown outwards from a tradition where everything was fixed in great detail, as musical notation on paper, and therefore repeatable to to a very high degree. And the other mostly about never repeating oneself, but always looking for a new, (sometimes radically) fresh way to express a musical work.

I adored working with Warren, Rick, Joe, and Tom. It was a privilege and a gift. And I'm so glad the recording with the NZSO was released.

This link takes you to moment in a documentary that was made around this time, in which you can see some rehearsal and actual concert footage of the performance with the NZSO. There's also a short interview with Warren and myself (I cringe hearing my own 'speaking on behalf of' lines). It's a taste of the intensity of the experience. 

And here's a photo with Warren and Hamish Mckeich - who conducted both shows - during a break in rehearsal with the NZSO.