‘Do you remember Ötzi?” Luka Venter asks. I do not. Ötzi, it turns out, lived somewhat more than 5000 years ago, but it was only in 1991 that the glacier he’d spent millennia trapped within melted, revealing his preserved remains.
Venter knows a fair bit about Ötzi and even more about glaciers. They’ve spent months researching them for glacier, their new work as composer-in-residence for the NZSO National Youth Orchestra, to be performed in Wellington and Auckland early next month.
There is an element of climate consciousness to glacier, but Venter approached it from an oblique angle.
“I wanted to write something that wasn’t about disintegration, that wasn’t explicitly about the loss of glaciers. I wanted more to convey a sense of energy. It was important that it wasn’t just the human view of the natural world; I wanted to write something that is in the natural world.”
Counterintuitively, that moves Venter to describe glacier in ways that are deeply intellectual, involving fractal geometry and permutations of the number nine, and which I don’t entirely understand, even – especially? – after they were kind enough to let me read the score.
The way Venter talks about their work, then, is cerebral; where’s the heart?
“The heart is everywhere: the physicality of what the players have to do and the luminosity of the sound; the constant sense of awe that is hopefully audible. Also, there’s momentum and physical energy in the piece, and the constant motion you get in a glacier.” It’s a contrast to many of Venter’s earlier works, which felt reticent, restrained. (“Okay, if we’re blunt, they’re slow,” they say with a smile.)
What continues in glacier is a layering. Previously, there was a steadfast platform upon which instruments built their sound. In glacier, there are layers of material working at different speeds. Layering is a topic Venter returns to several times, and not only regarding music.
“I’ve always been interested in the layering of the contemporary world with the sort of deep time of the natural world, and with archaeology, which is relevant here because glacial archaeology is maybe one of the newest fields in science.”
Old nestling up to and butting against new is a consistent thread of Venter’s worldview. You can see it, too, in their love of historically informed performance – this fiercely contemporary composer is also co-director of an early music group, The Night Watch.
“What’s interesting is you’re doing with Rameau, Bach and Vivaldi what you’re doing with new music. You’re approaching it as if you’re seeing it for the first time. The way you draw the bow across the strings, the colour you make; you create a fresh new sound every time you do it.”
National Youth Orchestra, Adventure featuring glaciers: Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, July 5, 7.30pm; Auckland Town Hall, July 6, 4pm.
