Auckland Arts Festival: An issue vital to the survival of our planet

Composer Kenneth Young (left) and Tim Gruchy, whose visuals accompany Young's work.

Water and light form a concert alliance with music and movement

I meet composer Kenneth Young after his work session with multimedia artist Tim Gruchy, balancing the flow of music and images for next week's Water and Light concert.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's first contribution to the city's arts festival features music by Mussorgsky, Mendelssohn and Takemitsu leading up to the premiere of Young's In Paradisum, a 45-minute cantata calling on two city choirs and a line-up of soloists, including soprano Patricia Wright.

"I'd always wanted to write something like this," Young enthuses, pleased with its "contemporary focus".

"It contains all kinds of messages text-wise and feeling-wise that I wanted to get across. It's my new age symphony," he smiles, reminding me of the memorable Town Hall airing of his First Symphony almost 30 years ago.

In Paradisum is a work with an ecological conscience.

"It's all about water," says Young, admitting he has never been happy with "that whole thing about the cow being the saviour of our economy. In fact, it's meant that we've screwed up our waterways something terrible," he adds, and, in this new score, he uses the words of writers from Wordsworth and Shakespeare to the Bengali poet Dwijendralal Lal Ray to fuel his argument.

"Wordsworth had a knowledge of things we still don't fully understand," he muses. So, too, did Shakespeare, according to Young; one of Titania's speeches at the beginning of A Midsummer Night's Dream "is like looking 400 years down the line and seeing the mess today, and how the seasons are getting buggered up".

In Paradisum is full of incident, from its opening karakia, sung by Ariana Tikao, after she has introduced herself on a koauau, the tuning of which has determined the key of Young's music.

"Anyone who does this piece in a hundred years' time will need an instrument that plays these specific notes," he laughs. "This is romantic stuff, very lush with lots of minims and semibreves."

Working with Tim Gruchy, whose stunning designs illuminated Golijov's Ainadamar in Wellington last year, has been very much a collaboration.

"Tim describes himself as a visual musician. He's someone who brings musical concerns to the visual realm and steps outside the normal parameters of visual presentation."

The composer admits he has been swept away by Gruchy's "very gradually shifting visual score. It's one big, long segue, seamless; all of a sudden you realise that you're somewhere else."

While Young wields his baton next Wednesday, Gruchy will be beside him on stage with laptop, "manipulating what you see on the screens, including waving his arms and affecting the images".

"Tim brings subtlety and nuance to what he is doing just as a conductor does, working with musicians. All we need now is to have perfume coming out of the air conditioning ducts and we'd have the whole Scriabin experience."

In Paradisum addresses an issue vital to the survival of our planet. Yet the philosophical is not overlooked. Towards the end, a treble soloist recites from the teachings of Buddha. "Change your thoughts and you will change the world/All that we are is the result of what we have thought/What we think we become."

For Young, growing up in the optimistic 70s, he feels that artists' messages can have an effect, "even if only a handful of people take it on and do something different. It's all about the power of thought."

What: Water and Light with Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Wednesday at 8pm