Customer Reviews

Talking Music: Conversations with New Zealand Musicians

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These engaging, informative profiles combine to build a history of New Zealand music for the highbrow crowd. The 14 subjects are all forthcoming and opinionated in their interviews, and the breadth is wide. Frank Gurr talks of the excitement of building a symphony orchestra from scratch after the Second World War (the weekly pay cheque was a generous £10), composer Dorothea Franchi of early discouragement playing the harp (an influence was Harpo Marx). Edwin Carr - the proudly conservative and accessible orchestral composer - is acerbic of "narrow nationalism" and recent cultural cross-pollination in music ("You don't plunder the temples," he quotes a friend), while Jack Body shrugs off accusations of exoticism. "One of the functions of art is to be outrageous, provocative, politically incorrect ... one has to learn not to become an embittered, grumpy old man. There's a few of those around. I hope that I can grow old joyful and unrepentant." Peter Scholes passionately parries criticism of the Enzso project from both classical and rock critics as "conservative and limiting"; he also describes his despair at sitting on arts council panels with such limited funds to share as "like walking into a nuclear bomb zone with a suitcase full of medicine".
It's invigorating to read such articulate opinions about music - especially for those jaded by musician interviews which are so often more about marketing - and no matter what your discipline, there is plenty here to inspire any musician.