Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Mārū - (adjective / modifier) be gentle, low-pitched and calm.
Imagine having a piece of music stuck in your head for 40 years. Now what if that piece of music was just one short bar, namely the second bar of Mozart’s Symphony no. 25?
‘Mārū’, is an attempt at exorcising that earworm, via a rousing responsorial shakedown, digging a new foundation and building a structure to support a new language. The many classical ornaments surrounding the earworm remain, but the structure is replaced with something hopefully bold and modern. Harmonically, new chords both thicken and undermine the existing progressions, adding allusions to music both before and after Mozart’s time. The end-result is a repetitive, methodically obsessive piece.
The earworm is first heard in the first violins, before travelling through the ensemble, stretching and collapsing. In the end, Mārū gives the earworm a final shaking…
Performed by Orchestras Central OCT Ensemble, leader Lara Hall, with Rachael Griffiths-Hughes (harpsichord) as part of Flights of Fancy: Taonga of the Sky - Birdsong & Baroque, presented by Orchestras Central Ngā Tira Pūoru o te Pokapū, Te Whare Taapere Iti, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, 23 August 2025.
Audio recorded by Bjørn Arntsen. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.
Learn more about the work on the SOUNZ website: sounz.org.nz/works/28822
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Learn more about the composers and performers of music from Aotearoa New Zealand on our website (sounz.org.nz), or by following us on Facebook (@SOUNZnz), Instagram (@sounz_nz), or TikTok (@sounz_nz).
#nzmusic
Mārū - (adjective / modifier) be gentle, low-pitched and calm.
Imagine having a piece of music stuck in your head for 40 years. Now what if that piece of music was just one short bar, namely the second bar of Mozart’s Symphony no. 25?
‘Mārū’, is an attempt at exorcising that earworm, via a rousing responsorial shakedown, digging a new foundation and building a structure to support a new language. The many classical ornaments surrounding the earworm remain, but the structure is replaced with something hopefully bold and modern. Harmonically, new chords both thicken and undermine the existing progressions, adding allusions to music both before and after Mozart’s time. The end-result is a repetitive, methodically obsessive piece.
The earworm is first heard in the first violins, before travelling through the ensemble, stretching and collapsing. In the end, Mārū gives the earworm a final shaking…
Performed by Orchestras Central OCT Ensemble, leader Lara Hall, with Rachael Griffiths-Hughes (harpsichord) as part of Flights of Fancy: Taonga of the Sky - Birdsong & Baroque, presented by Orchestras Central Ngā Tira Pūoru o te Pokapū, Te Whare Taapere Iti, Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, 23 August 2025.
Audio recorded by Bjørn Arntsen. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.
Learn more about the work on the SOUNZ website: sounz.org.nz/works/28822
--
Learn more about the composers and performers of music from Aotearoa New Zealand on our website (sounz.org.nz), or by following us on Facebook (@SOUNZnz), Instagram (@sounz_nz), or TikTok (@sounz_nz).
#nzmusic
