Stroma is back, kicking off 2022 with a dynamic evening of music never before heard in New Zealand. The concert explores the way that the very human disciplines of construction and engineering can be transformed through creative ‘dreaming’ into objects of the imaginary — in this way, composers are ‘dream architects’.

The programme features two world premieres: ‘Dream Compass’ by Chris Cree Brown and ‘I write and chew and crack my bones and think about hospitality’ by Ihlara McIndoe. ‘Dream Compass’ attempts to navigate musical material in a similar way to a sleeper who endeavours to steer a lucid dream, while McIndoe’s piece is conceived as a critique of the ‘social and bureaucratic microcosm in which our art germinates and manifests itself’.

Elsewhere on the programme is Reuben Jelleyman’s ‘Klein Fountain’, nominated for the 2021 SOUNZ Contemporary Prize, which is an homage to Felix Klein, a mathematician who conceived of an ‘imaginary object’, the Klein Bottle, which represents a 4D toppology. ‘Klein Fountain’ evokes the imaginary flow of water through such a bottle in an inventive, sonically brilliant manner.

Rounding out the concert are works by Charlotte Bray (‘Renga Miniatures’, based on the traditional Japanese poetic form of a Renga) and Anna Thorvaldsdottir (‘Spectra’, envisioned as an ecosystem of materials that are carried from one performer to the next throughout the piece).

FEATURING

Barbara Patterson (soprano)

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

PROGRAMME

Chris Cree Brown Dream Compass

Reuben Jelleyman Klein Fountain

Anna Thorvaldsdottir Spectra

Ihlara McIndoe I write and chew and crack my bones and think about hospitality

Charlotte Bray Renga Miniatures

Doors open at 7pm