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Dr Martin Lodge
MMus (Well), MA (Waik), PhD (Syd)
Associate Professor
Director of The New Zealand Music Research Group
Best known as a composer, Martin Lodge is also a scholar and commentator on music. In 1990 and again in 1991 Martin held the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago, New Zealand's longest established composer residency position. In 1993 he was composer in residence with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, for whom he wrote Symphony No.1 'Flowers of the Sea'. He has also fulfilled commissions from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and international performers such as William Dowdall (Ireland) and Timothy Deighton (USA).
Being awarded the J.D. Stout Research Fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington in 1994 enabled him to conduct substantial research into the music and life of New Zealand composer Anthony Watson (1933-73). He is a contributor to the Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press) and Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. He has been a member of the international advisory board of BRONZS, the British Review of New Zealand Studies (London), and served on the international advisory board of the CNZS Bulletin of New Zealand Studies (Birkbeck, University of London). He is currently on the editorial board of Massey University Music Editions (Wellington, NZ).
Martin was chair of Music from July 1999 to June 2002, and currently is director of composition studies. His principal teaching areas are composition and analysis, and he leads a graduate course in music aesthetics. In 1997 he initiated an innovative course on New Zealand Music, which covers traditional Maori music and popular music as well as New Zealand composition in the classical Western tradition. He followed up this initiative by planning and leading the introduction of a complete stream of Maori music studies in the Waikato BMus degree. This unique option of music study, first offered in 2007, was developed in collaboration with colleagues in the University's School of Maori and Pacific Development, where the courses are taught.
He led the artistic design specifications of the acclaimed Gallagher Concert Chamber in the University of Waikato Academy of Performing Arts, (opened 2001). The hall is now widely regarded as a pre-eminent NZ venue for chamber music.
 Hinterland, a commissioned piece premiered by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in March 1998 and subsequently broadcast by Radio NZ, evoked an exceptionally warm response from audience, players and critics alike. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra opened its main 2001 season with Hinterland and on 3rd December 2001 Trust Records launched the CD Landscapes including this work played by the NZSO. The disc was nominated for Classical Album of the Year in the 2002 Tui Awards.
The virtuoso piece for solo viola Pacific Rock (2000) has been championed internationally by Timothy Deighton (USA) and a recording published on the Atoll CD Viola Aotearoa. Summer Music for piano trio was commissioned by the Ogen Trio to launch the 2002 Millenium Rotorua Chamber Music Festival. It premiered on 12 January 2002; a new studio recording of the work features on the recent (2008) Atoll CD Ahi by the Ogen Trio. The Auckland Philharmonia conducted by Werner Andreas Albert premiered the commissioned piece Aër in the Auckland Town Hall on 29 August 2002 (rehearsal pictures). In July 2003, US duo The Irrelevants premiered Ritual for alto saxophone & viola at the World Saxophone Congress in Minneapolis. Also in 2003, the innovative trio Toru for taonga puoro (traditional Māori instruments), cello and clarinet generated widespread interest. It was written for Richard Nunns, James Tennant and Peter Scholes (Toru rehearsal photo) and has been recorded and broadcast by Radio New Zealand. Plenum for organ was commissioned by the NZ Association of Organists and premiered in June 2004. The European premiere was given by Christopher Hainsworth in Montpellier Cathedral on 18 September 2005. The score is included in the anthology Organ Music by New Zealand Composers (ed. Apperley, Fagus Music, UK, 2004).
Martin was Chair of the Composers Advisory Panel to the Centre for New Zealand Music (SOUNZ) based in Wellington 1997-2003 and is co-founder and artistic co-ordinator of the contemporary performance ensemble Okta. He has a growing interest in computer applications to music performance and is a founding composer member of IMP, the interactive music project.
In 2010 he founded The New Zealand Music Research Group, one of the University of Waikato’s specialised research units, to promote innovative researches into music and related areas.
Publishers
Scores - Waiteata Music Editions (Wellington), Fagus Music (UK)
Recordings - Trust, Atoll, Ode/Manu, Maxwell Fernie Trust
Book - Steele Roberts
Scholarly articles - Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press), Les cahiers du CICLaS (University of Paris), Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM, New York), British Review of New Zealand Studies, Canzona, Landfall
Coming Up
For Edward King and Santiago Cañon Valencia, two brilliant young cello virtuosi currently studying at the Conservatorium of Music under James Tennant, Martin is writing a highly demanding cello duo titled Night Wind and Aria with Commentary for premiere in 2011.
Current Composition Projects
- Tauhara for saxophone and classical guitar. Commissioned by Duo Montagnard (USA)
- Viola Concerto commissioned by Timothy Deighton (USA)
Recent Composition Projects
A new CD entitled Breathe featuring William Dowdall was launched in Dublin in October 2010. The disc includes Martin Lodge’s Oiche ghealai for alto flute and taonga puoro (traditional Maori instruments). The piece was commissioned by Dowdall who is joined in its performance by taonga puoro exponent Richard Nunns
- Voces naturae I: locus iste multimedia work for live performers, live video mixing and live surround sound mixing (2010)
- Oiche ghealai for alto flute and taonga puoro (2009)
- Winterlight for bassoon and orchestra. Commissioned by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. First performances with Preman Tilman soloist and the NZSO conducted by Julia Jones in Wellington (2008)
- sub rosa for oboe quintet. Written for, and first performed by, performance fellows of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2008)
- Cadenza from the Viola Concerto currently in progress, commissioned by Timothy Deighton. Cadenza premiered in Adelaide, Australia June 2007 and replayed in New York, Brazil, Panama etc. in 2008.
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- After Dürer - music/dance/animation video made in collaboration with Daniel Belton and Jac Grenfell. Premiere screening at The Body festival of dance and physical theatre, Repertory Theatre, Christchurch, 6 October 2007.
After Dürer won the Prize for Most Innovative Work (Premio Opera Piu’ Innovativa) at Il Coreografo Elettronico, the fifteenth international festival of video-dance held in Naples, Italy, in June 2008. A shortened cut of the video can be viewed on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWY7kiHMKLk
Some other recent performances
- Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV639chorale preludeby J.S. Bach arranged for the Cellophonics cello ensemble directed by James Tennant. First performed by Cellophonics in the Gallagher Concert Chamber of the Academy of Performing Arts at the University of Waikato on 6 October 2010.
- Summer Music for piano trio. New studio recording included on the compact disc Ahi by the Ogen Trio. Atoll, July 2008
- Cassation for orchestra. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra reading workshop and recording conducted by Scott Parkman. Fowler Centre, Wellington 3 September 2008
- Aër for orchestra. Christchurch Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tom Woods, in the 'Maestro' programme with Wagner Meistersinger overture, Chopin Piano Concerto no.1 and Brahms Symphony no.2. Christchurch Town Hall, 20 June 2008
- Pastorale. New arrangement of the piano piece made for string quartet. First performed by members of l’Orchestre 2021, New Zealand Embassy in Paris, 11 April 2008.
Recent Musicological Work
- 'Music historiography in New Zealand', chapter in Music's intellectual history ed. Blazekovic and Mackenzie. New York: Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), 2009, pp.625-652.
- 'Put to music by Messiaen', short essay in French Footprints in New Zealand. Wellington: French Embassy to New Zealand, 2009.
Convener of the annual conference of the New Zealand Musicological Association featuring a special seminar day on the work and life of composer Douglas Lilburn, 15-17 November 2008, University of Waikato.
- 'The drowned Dionysus: classicism and neoclassicism in New Zealand music'. Paper presented at the conference ‘New Zealand and the Mediterranean’, 4 July 2008, American University, Florence campus (Italy).
- Conjoint presentation with Richard Nunns and James Tennant of the paper and performance 'Hau: some issues of aesthetics and practicalities encountered when combining traditional Maori and Western concert music' at the conference Tradition/Transformation: composition and ethnomusicology in Asia and the Pacific during the 2007 Asia Pacific Festival. 9 February 2007 Wellington. Subsequently published as:
- ‘Hau: reflections on some issues encountered when combining traditional Maori and Western concert music’ Canzona 2007
- ‘The John Mansfield Thomson Archive at the University of Waikato’, co-authored with Phillippa Ulenberg Canzona 2007
- 25 November 2006 Wellington - presentation of the paper 'The Thomson-Page Correspondence, 1959-84' at Musicology '06, the 23rd annual conference of the New Zealand Musicological Society.
- 30 June 2006 Paris - presentation of the paper 'The French Influence on New Zealand Music' at the conference New Zealand, France and the Pacific held at the Université Paris Dauphine. This paper was subsequently published in Les Cahiers du CICLas no.8, Novembre 2006, pp.127-140.
- 23 June 2006 Bordeaux - presentation of the paper 'Violence in New Zealand Operas' at the journée d'etudes à l'Université de Bordeaux III.
- 'Voices of the Land: Richard Nunns in conversation with Martin Lodge'. Canzona 2006, vol. 27 no. 48 pp.65-69
- July 2005 Hamburg - presentation of an invited guest lecture on recent developments in New Zealand music, including his own latest work, at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg.
- John Mansfield Thomson: notes towards a biography. Edited by Margaret Clark, with Jim Collinge and Martin Lodge. Steele Roberts 2003.
- Pacific Rock - performing edition. , Waiteata Music Press 2005 no.2 ISBN 0-877381-04-7. Pacific Rock scanned extract
Links
Sports & Diversions
mlodge@waikato.ac.nz
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