Residencies and Internships
- VWO Composers-in-Residence 2012
- VWO Education Composer-in-Residence
- VWO Emerging Composer-in-Residence
- VWO Assistant Conductor Internship
- Arts Administration Internship
- Launching Gisborne Competition Winners with the VWO!
VWO Composers-in-Residence 2012
The VWO Composer-in-Residence for 2012 is Juliet Palmer. Now based in Toronto, Palmer moved from New Zealand to New York in 1990 to work with composer-performer Meredith Monk. Palmer completed her PhD at Princeton in 1999 and now works in diverse media from chamber music to multimedia installations, dance, music theatre, opera and symphonic works.
Her work has been featured around the world, from New York’s Bang On A Can Festival to Italy’s Angelica Festival and Australia's Adelaide Festival. Performers of her music include the Penderecki String Quartet, Trio Fibonacci, the Gryphon Trio, Toca Loca, Continuum, l'Orchestre Métropolitain conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Tapestry New Opera Works (Canada); Les Percussions de Strasbourg (France); Fontanamix (Italy); Piano Circus (UK); California EAR Unit and the Bang on a Can All-Stars (USA); and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Juliet co-founded the interdisciplinary collective urbanvessel in 2006. Their 2010 work inspired by women boxers, Voice Box, was acclaimed by Musicworks Magazine as “a performance piece that smashes the boundaries between disciplines and leaves them sprawled out on the mat, down for the count”.
Juliet is the 2011/2012 Creative New Zealand-Jack C Richards Composer-in-Residence at Te Koki, the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington.
As the 2010/2011 Creative New Zealand-Jack C Richards Composer-in-Residence Chris Gendall was the inaugural Vector Wellington Orchestra Composer-in-Residence in 2011. Gendall’s commission for the VWO, a concerto featuring the NZTrio as soloists, will be performed as part of 2012’s third subscription concerts in Wellington and Masterton.
Gendall’s works have received performances in New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and the United States by such performers as Arnold Marinissen, Marcel Worms, the University of Miami Percussion Ensemble, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
VWO Education Composer-in-Residence
For the past five years, parents and children in the Wellington region have been enjoying Thomas Goss’ Baby Pops programmes. The VWO to formalise a very successful existing relationship by naming Thomas Goss as their 2012 Education Composer-in-Residence. Scripted around themes children love such as Down on the Farm, Down in the Jungle, and Once Upon a Time, Baby Pops features familiar music arranged by Goss as well as new works written for the purpose such as Tane and the Kiwi and Maui’s Fishhook.
His new show for 2012 will be One Two Toru Wha! It will feature counting rhymes and a re-telling of the Maori legend of Tongariro and Taranaki, The Battle of the Mountains.
VWO Emerging Composer-in-Residence
Karlo Margetic has been named as the 2012 Emerging Composer-in-Residence. Born in 1987, Margetic holds degrees in composition and clarinet from the New Zealand School of Music. He has received numerous prizes in composition, including the NZSO/Todd Young Composer Award (2006), the Trusts Young Composer Competition (Auckland Philharmonia) (2005), the New Zealand Community Trust Chamber Music Contest SOUNZ prize for original composition (2004 and 2005).
He was Composer in Residence with the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2007 and Young Composer in Residence with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in 2007 and 2008 for whom he has written a number of orchestral and chamber works.
Margetic has received commissions and performances from NZ Trio, Duo Solaris, Saxcess, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Auckland Chamber Orchestra, and the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta. His music was workshopped by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as part of the CreativeNZ/SOUNZ Readings in 2009 and 2011.
Also an active performer, Margetic is Co-Director of the SMP Ensemble, with whom he has appeared as composer, clarinettist, conductor and narrator.
VWO Assistant Conductor Internship
Brent John Stewart took up position as the HOD of Music at Wellington East Girls’ College in 2010. Alongside his work in education he has worked for the last four years as the Musical Director of the Hutt Valley Orchestra and is known to VWO audiences in his position as Sub-Principal Percussionist.
Brent hails from studies at Auckland University, Victoria University and the New Zealand School of Music where he gained a Bachelor of Music with 1st Degree Honours.
His achievements include his work with the treble voice choir Cantala who last year received a Bronze award at the National Choral Federation Big Sing. Following a successful audition, he will take the choir to the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Competition in Vienna in 2012 . Brent is commonly acquired as a piano accompanist, including accompanying at the Gisborne International Music Competition. As a soloist, he has performed Karlo Margetic’s Xylophone Concerto with the Auckland Philharmonia and recently recorded the entire concerto with the NZSO.
Arts Administration Internship
Partnering the visual arts and music sectors
An innovative new partnership between Vector Wellington Orchestra and Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design will create a unique learning opportunity for aspiring arts administrators.
In 2012, an opportunity will exist for one MA student in the Arts Management Programme at Whitecliffe to undertake an internship with the VWO. Each internship will cater for individual students’ research needs and provide the opportunity to gain practical arts management experience through working in the VWO management offices.
Traditionally arts managers tend to fall into two categories; those with a business background and those who are, or have been artists and wish to develop their business skills. Whitecliffe's Master of Arts in Arts Management (MAAM) degree provides a much-needed bridge between art and commerce.
The Arts sector in New Zealand consists of a mosaic of different organisations. They have the same broad general requirements but often very different modes of operation. This new joint internship will give students a valuable perspective by embracing both the visual and performance arts.
Launching Gisborne Competition Winners with the VWO!
The VWO would like to celebrate and support the fantastic quality of contestants in the Gisborne International Music Competition. What better way to reward a winner than a spot on our concert stage? The VWO is offering a spot in its 2013 programme that will feature the winner of this year’s Gisborne International Music Competition as a soloist.
Established in 1989, the competition provides young players of orchestral instruments on the cusp of professional careers the opportunity to hone their performance skills against their colleagues from around the world and to learn from jurors who are themselves musicians of the highest calibre. Past finalists can now be found playing in orchestras and chamber groups throughout the world such as the NZSO, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, the Macau Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Hanover Band, the New Zealand Trio and the Australian String Quartet, while others have successfully pursued careers as concert soloists.
