Jessie Leov

Well December has arrived and it’s been quite the eventful year, in more ways than one.

The silver lining of the covid situation is that 2022 is going to be filled with all of the postponed concerts and events that couldn’t go ahead this year. Turns out there’s quite a bit to look forward to already!

Read on for all the details.

NZTrio Winners Concert. This was due to take place in Auckland in October but will now be held sometime next year. The six winning works of the 2021 NZTrio AudioVisualise Composing Competition will be performed, including my piece convergency.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Our Voice Orchestral Readings. This was first scheduled for September, then postponed to November, and now postponed to 2022. My piece marble, bark, silver for chamber orchestra will have its first airing at this workshop. It’s in three movements, two of which were pretty experimental, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Kotahitanga Public Opening. The Kotahitanga exhibition, which I wrote this piece for, opened in September at the University of Waikato with a small launch event and karakia attended by the artists involved, instead of the planned public opening (due to Covid alert levels). There has been some talk of holding the public opening event early next year, so if this does happen I may have to drag some of my friends down from Auckland to come along ;)

lady of the river premiere. This piece, written for SATB choir, piano, and string orchestra, was actually meant to be performed in October 2020 by the University of Auckland Student Choir and Orchestra at a joint concert. Of course, covid stepped in with the August/September Auckland outbreak in 2020, and again in 2021. Hopefully 2022 will be third time lucky.

Cantorum Christmas Concert. Cantorum commissioned me to write this piece for their Christmas concert. It was originally scheduled for Christmas of 2021 but since the choir didn’t have chance to rehearse due to lockdown, it’ll now be premiered at their 2022 Christmas concert.

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This will be my last post for 2021 – I’ve managed to publish one post per month for the past seven months and I must say I’m quite proud of myself. My goal for 2022 is to do one post per month for the whole year which should be very doable.

For now, wishing you all a very merry Christmas – see you in the new year xx

Some good news to share as the end of the year rapidly approaches!

I was chuffed to find out that my work nunc dimittis, for double SATB choir, has been awarded a Highly Commended in the Open Category of the 2021 Compose Aotearoa! choral composition competition. I was stoked to see the judges mention the ‘ethereal and dreamlike’ quality of my piece in their comments. I’m really glad that came across – even through the very DIY vocal demo that I submitted, in which I sing every part 😂

I first entered nunc dimittis into the 25 & Under Category of the inaugural contest in 2020, where it was also awarded a Highly Commended. After being workshopped by the Auckland Chamber Choir, and undergoing some serious revision for my masters portfolio submission, I submitted the new and improved piece into the Open Category this year. As an emerging composer still finding my feet in this industry, it’s a real honour to be recognised in the Open Category alongside some well-established Kiwi composers that I look up to.

I’m on the hunt for a choir to premiere this work! The score is presented as temporal boxed notation so it’s a little different from the norm. If you know of a choir looking for a challenge, or something to get their teeth into, please do get in touch and I’ll send through a score and demo.

See the official announcement post below for the full list of award recipients:

View my artist page on the Kotahitanga online gallery.

It was a unique experience creating a new work for the Kotahitanga initiative over the second half of August this year. Founded in 2020 by Creative Waikato, this project invites artists from all mediums to submit proposals each year to create new artworks that hold and express the importance of Kotahitanga – a united community against racism.

This year another diverse group of artists were commissioned to create new works for the Kotahitanga online gallery. My work, three reflections, for voice and piano, features three mini-movements and aims to evoke a poignant space that encourages the listener, or performer, to reflect on how they can extend kotahitanga in their community. It prioritises music’s universality and its ability to transcend language, racial and ethnic barriers, encouraging musicians and performers in the community to interpret, and expand on, the composition in a way that feels meaningful to them.

The physical exhibition, held at the University of Waikato’s Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts gallery space, will run from October 2021 to February 2022 and features all of the works from this year’s and last year’s artists. Scrolling through the online gallery, I feel inspired by the mahi of all the artists involved, and grateful to be able to contribute to this kaupapa.

After I handed in my masters portfolio in mid-July, I got started on a commissioned piece for Auckland-based chamber choir Cantorum.

The commission is for a piece between four to six minutes in length for a cappella SATB choir, suitable to be performed at a Christmas concert. Before I started searching for a text, I had the pleasure of going along to one of Cantorum’s rehearsals and that really helped me to get a feel for the group and the direction in which I might take the piece.

The text that I chose for the commission, in collaboration with the choir’s musical director Anita, is a poem called Snow Song, published in 1897 by poet Frank Dempster Sherman (1860-1916). It paints a beautiful picture of the wintry countryside and the language has an inherent musicality that drew me in as soon as I read it. It also has a festive, joyful nature which brings back fond memories of Christmas 2016 which I spent in Canada – my first and only winter Christmas, something we are sadly bereft of here in Aotearoa!.

After I hand over the score at the start of September the choir will begin rehearsing it, when Covid allows, in preparation for its scheduled premiere at Christmas with Cantorum, 11 December 2021 at All Saints Church, Ponsonby. Whether or not the concert goes ahead this year will depend on how the Covid alert levels play out in the coming weeks, but either way it will eventually be performed!

Whenever it does take place, I’m looking forward to the performance and will be sure to film it so I can share it with you.

Snow Song
Frank Dempster Sherman

Over valley, over hill,
Hark, the shepherd piping shrill!
Driving all the white flocks forth
From the far folds of the North.
Blow, Wind, blow ;
Weird melodies you play,
Following your flocks that go
Across the world to-day.

How they hurry, how they crowd
When they hear the music loud
Grove and lane and meadow full
Sparkle with their shining wool.
Blow, Wind, blow
Until the forests ring:
Teach the eaves the tunes you know,
And make the chimney sing!

Hither, thither, up and down
Every highway of the town,
Huddling close, the white flocks all
Gather at the shepherd s call.
Blow, Wind, blow
Upon your pipes of joy;
All your sheep the flakes of snow
And you their shepherd boy!