Russel Walder Collaborations

I orchestrated three works for Russel’s performance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

1 Conception

2 Her Waters

3 Phenomenon

I've been a long-time admirer of Russel's music; both his studio compositions and his unique oboe playing. The standout album for me has always been "Music for a Shift in Consciousness" and the opening track of that album 'Wisdom Calls When the Wall Falls" I've listened to many dozens of times. It is one of my all-time favourite tracks.

Russel reached out to me years ago with an open invitation to collaborate - which I was humbled by. During the creation of No Man's Land I asked Russel to create a textural weave around the kemenche playing of Derya Turkan, the singing of Serj Tankian, the Ney playing of Saddredin Ozcimi, the lyra playing of Stratis Psaradellis, and the saxophone playing of Hayden Chisholm. What Russel created for that was astonishing as much for its profound contribution as it was for its ability to be so present and yet be out of the way of everyone else. It was a masterclass in emotional power and sonic transparency.

When Russel asked me to collaborate on orchestrating three of his pieces for a performance with the NZSO I was super keen but also unsure of my abilities. I mean, I really listened to his electronic, ambient music. I had some idea of what was involved in such a translation. But I was driven more than anything by wanting to help Russel achieve his dream of performing with the NZSO.

Once I started work on the orchestrations my worst fears were realised; there was so much sonic detail and layering in just one audio stem from one of his pieces that I could have used all the instruments in a symphony orchestra in assigning the content of just this one stem. And there were many stems! It really took some doing and was quite an education in extracting the most essential elements from these filtered, delay-heavy, constantly morphing textures.

There was a lot of back and forth, but we got there in the end. When Russel took to the stage with the NZSO (in Shed 6 in Wellington) he presented as someone who had always been meant for playing that role. He owned the stage and was flawless in delivering this very powerful and moving music he'd created. I was glad of my role in bringing his dream to life. It was an honour.

There's a video of one of the pieces below.