Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
On her work, 'shifting worlds', composer Louise Webster writes:
“Commissioned by the Martinborough Music Festival, one of the connections underpinning the commission of shifting worlds was the knowledge that my Scots forbears had settled on lands in and around Martinborough in the mid-19th century. Having been forced off their own lands in Caithness, in 1839 they left Badbea, a clearance village on the bleak wind-swept cliffs above the North Sea and travelled to Aotearoa, in turn occupying Ngāti Kahungunu lands acquired by the New Zealand Land Company using questionable colonial processes. My great-great-great-grandparents, Alexander and Elspeth Sutherland, spoke to each other in Gaelic throughout their lives in Aotearoa. In this work I imagine the sounds they might have experienced, immersed in a new sound-world while holding still to the language, songs and sounds of the old one they had left behind. Fragments of songs from the north of Scotland—a soothing croon, an ancient walking song, a love lament—recur throughout the work, interwoven with material that represents their new world.”
Performed by Donald Armstrong (violin), Caroline Henbest (viola), Matthias Balzat (cello) and Jian Liu (piano) at the Martinborough Music Festival, Martinborough Town Hall, 21 September 2025.
Audio recorded by David Houston for RNZ Concert. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.
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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
On her work, 'shifting worlds', composer Louise Webster writes:
“Commissioned by the Martinborough Music Festival, one of the connections underpinning the commission of shifting worlds was the knowledge that my Scots forbears had settled on lands in and around Martinborough in the mid-19th century. Having been forced off their own lands in Caithness, in 1839 they left Badbea, a clearance village on the bleak wind-swept cliffs above the North Sea and travelled to Aotearoa, in turn occupying Ngāti Kahungunu lands acquired by the New Zealand Land Company using questionable colonial processes. My great-great-great-grandparents, Alexander and Elspeth Sutherland, spoke to each other in Gaelic throughout their lives in Aotearoa. In this work I imagine the sounds they might have experienced, immersed in a new sound-world while holding still to the language, songs and sounds of the old one they had left behind. Fragments of songs from the north of Scotland—a soothing croon, an ancient walking song, a love lament—recur throughout the work, interwoven with material that represents their new world.”
Performed by Donald Armstrong (violin), Caroline Henbest (viola), Matthias Balzat (cello) and Jian Liu (piano) at the Martinborough Music Festival, Martinborough Town Hall, 21 September 2025.
Audio recorded by David Houston for RNZ Concert. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.
--
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
