New Zealand Listener – August 24, 2019

AUGUST 24 2019 LISTENER 55

think and the way we manage our

country and our resources and the way

in which we value our cities and our

towns.”

So, are the shows a form of protest?

Tonnon says that for his generation

• it’s telling he defines this by saying
  he was born just after finance minister
  Roger Douglas floated the dollar in
  March 1985 – protest doesn’t work in
  the way it did for boomers.
  “The generation I’m part of is
  ambivalent about the forms of protest
  that were more
  common before
  the 1980s – I don’t
  feel as if letters to
  the editor would
  work and I don’t
  focus on writing
  protest songs in
  the same way
  as There is No
  Depression in New
  Zealand was a pro-
  test song. There’s
  an unwillingness
  to be didactic in
  that way; instead,
  we use different
  methods. So, I
  wouldn’t say that
  Rail Land is a pro-
  test; instead, it is
  doing something.
  “That’s where
  I see potential
  for change – if I
  get 150 people
  together and [we]
  have a great expe-
  rience by running
  a train, that to
  me is much more
  interesting than
  writing letters to the editor.”

I

n the same way that the Rail Land

show changes from location to loca-

tion – and, he hopes, will grow with

his music year-by-year – Tonnon’s second

set of shows this year is also an evolution

• this time from an idea conceived to run
  as part of last year’s New Zealand Interna-
  tional Science Festival and first performed
  at Otago Museum’s planetarium.
  A Synthesized Universe relies, like
  Rail Land, on a great deal of research
  condensed into a one-hour show. It

originally involved using a real-time

planetarium display for its backdrop,

but, Tonnon says, it was unrealistic to

have a show that relied on “anyone

who has a state-of-the-art, half-a-

million-dollar planetarium”. So he’s

adapted it to be able to tour smaller

venues and arts festivals by incorporat-

ing 3D holograms created by projectors

and computer mapping, which run

behind a constant flow of spoken-word

narratives, history-telling, theatrical-

ity, a synthesizer score and individual

songs.

Although

Tonnon started

out as a traditional

release-an-album,

tour-an-album

performer and still

intends to release

albums, he’s

adapted quickly to

what he says is the

far more interest-

ing process of

building themed

live shows and

tours.

“I struggle

with the culture

of music that I

grew up in of just

playing songs and

‘being real, man’.

I don’t think we

were respecting

people’s time.

“I’ve come to

realise that the

only reason a

performer deserves

to have people

turn up and give

them an hour of

their valuable time is if that performer

has spent a lot more time preparing

for that hour than the audience has.

If you can distil 200 hours of research

and preparation into an hour on stage,

then you can transcend time, and that’s

where the magic of performance comes

from.” l

Rail Land: Gonville, St Peter’s Church,

Whanganui, August 17. A Synthesized

Universe, Tairāwhiti Arts Festival, Gisborne,

October 11; Nelson Arts Festival, October 24;

Tauranga Arts Festival, October 26.

Sense of the

abstract

Composer’s sonic

fragments more than

the sum of their parts.

C

ontemporary art music without lyrics

or evocative titles doesn’t always make

for easy listening. Remove the ready

appeal of driving rhythm or beat and

we are challenged to open our ears to a differ-

ent kind of beauty.

For New Zealand composer Chris Gendall,

music is always an abstract art form. In his

intriguing works, he explores the sounds and

gestures we hear, the resonances in which they

vibrate and the silences that punctuate them.

Sonic shapes are suspended in musical space

as if from an aural mobile as he invites us to

consider their qualities and relationships.

Gendall’s new album includes chamber

works from a decade of composing. Dulcet

Tones is presented with verve by the NZ Trio,

the sweetness of the title found in limpid

piano flurries within a fragmentary texture.

The Suite that follows in a committed perfor-

mance from the New Zealand String Quartet

is full of Germanic expressionist angst, its

gritty and irascible surface making little

attempt to beguile.

Friends of Distinction is Gendall’s decon-

struction of music by Bach, Scarlatti and

Schumann. Sarah Watkins’ fleet pianism spar-

kles like the originals, while the raw material

is broken up for our contemplation. Watkins

also features in the rapid, explosive Going

like Mad, with a title from the conclusion of

Joyce’s Ulysses. The “going”, the rhythmic

momentum, is interrupted by improvisatory

pauses. Though written for piano duet, Wat-

kins plays both parts, recorded separately.

An exquisite performance of the introspec-

tive Inward Goes for solo flute is particularly

appealing. Luca Manghi finds a huge expres-

sive range, including singing and whistling

into his instrument, while carrying the music

forward to make complete sense of Gendall’s

floating melodic fragments. l

TONES, Chris Gendall, featuring the NZ Trio, New

Zealand String Quartet, Sarah Watkins (piano),

Luca Manghi (flute) (Rattle)

CLASSICAL

by Elizabeth Kerr

He spent hours doing

research for his shows

at the Otago Settlers

Museum and the

Hocken Collections

at the University of

Otago Library.