SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music

SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music SOUNZ Toi te Arapūoru champions the music of Aotearoa New Zealand. SOUNZ is governed by a volunteer board of trustees who meet four times a year in Wellington.

Collect: We maintain and develop a diverse collection of quality New Zealand music resources (scores, audio, video etc) and make them available for loan, hire and sale, accessed through SOUNZ Online. Curate: We offer guidance to the resources in the collection so that our users can find the information or the material they need. Connect: We connect performers, presenters, teachers, composers, art

istic directors and broadcasters with New Zealand music through our promotional activities and projects:

- NZSO-SOUNZ-RNZC Recordings provide new recordings of NZ orchestral music for promotional purposes and free streaming on our website.
- SOUNZ Contemporary Award presented in partnership with APRA rewards excellence and inspiration in contemporary art music composition.
- Resound project supported by NZ On Air and in partnership with RNZ Concert has made many historical recordings of NZ concert music available online, produced new studio recordings of key works, and allowed us to film live concerts for free online streaming. We are registered as a charitable trust with the charities commission (CC22488). SOUNZ is a member of IAMIC , the International Association of Music Information Centres, and the International Music Council of Unesco.

14/10/2025

Jump on and hold on tight as Briar Prastiti's 'Pegasus' takes flight! This work is a nostalgic retelling of Briar's childhood memories of riding a horse up and down a forest gully in Tauranga. It alternates between energetic, rhythmic sections depicting the earthly horse galloping, and more ethereal, starry sections that show Pegasus taking flight.

Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich, as part of the 2024 NZ Composer Sessions. Audio by David Houston for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

13/10/2025

Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be releasing a series of films from last year's NZ Composer Sessions, our partnership project with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and RNZ Concert to record works by more New Zealanders.

First up is George Smith's evocative and deeply personal, 'Conversations with Death'. The work is a meditation on depression and anxiety, with slow-moving changes in texture and harmony giving a reflective and intimate view of the composer's experience.

Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich. Audio by David Houston for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

10/10/2025

What would it sound like if we could interact musically with plants and fungi—if humans stopped to listen and respond?

Created as part of Kieran Monaghan's 2024 Creative New Zealand/New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington/Toi Poneke Arts Centre Sonic Artist Residency, vegetable.machine.animal takes data from plants and fungi and translates it into sound through a modular synthesizer. The material is then improvised on by Kieran and a number of musical collaborators - here with Ruby Solly on taonga puoro and cello. Check out the full set of films from the project here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjqwPJu2kmN71g9L7Q07foOBpyifpb7N1

GUEST is available for purchase:
👉 SkirtedRecords: mrsterileassembly.bandcamp.com/album/guest, or
👉 Audio Foundation: audiofoundation.bandcamp.com/album/guest

Audio recorded, mixed and mastered by Kieran Monaghan. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

09/10/2025

As the days get longer, and the dawn gets earlier, we're loving this gorgeous conversation between two violins. Victoria Kelly Composer's 'Waraki' refers to the dawn chorus, with the violins conversing and reacting to each other with ornate, detailed passages, chirps, tweets, and high-pitched harmonics imitative of birdsong finally breaking the silence of the night.

Performed by Benjamin Baker and Justine Cormack as part of the 2024 At the World's Edge Festival. Audio recorded by Adrian Hollay for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

Learn all about the colours and found instruments that Nathaniel Otley used in his recent orchestral work, 'this rising ...
07/10/2025

Learn all about the colours and found instruments that Nathaniel Otley used in his recent orchestral work, 'this rising tide, these former wetlands', written for the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra. The work uses stories and sounds from his community in South Dunedin, with the result showing the plight of the area as it increasingly feels the effects of climate change. Check it our on our website! https://sounz.org.nz/articles/rising-tide2

06/10/2025

"Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music" Eve de Castro-Robinson Composer’s kaleidoscopic violin and piano duo ‘Split the Lark’ is inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name. It explores the perception of beauty and reality, with long sustained phrases in both instruments increasingly giving way to more intense and frantic gestures as the work progresses.

We've put together a playlist of works filmed at the 2024 At the World's Edge Festival, on our YouTube channel. Check out this work, alongside many others by Eve and other New Zealand composers: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjqwPJu2kmN6q4Y1EHglEz-9wdvDLjJ4w

Performed by Benjamin Baker (violin) and Daniel Lebhardt, pianist as part of the 2024 At the World's Edge Festival. Audio by Adrian Hollay for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

06/10/2025

Flo Wilson is one of the finalists for this year's SOUNZ Contemporary Award, for their work 'In the Stars'. Beaming in from Berlin where they are working as a composer, tutor, and music technician, Flo talks about the story behind 'In the Stars', a site-specific work turning the silos at Silo Park in Tāmaki Makaurau into a giant interactive organ. Complete with a choir of six singers who move around the space, 'In the Stars' gives the audience a fully immersive experience - stay tuned to the end to see what it was like to encounter this amazing work!

📣 Applications open! 📣 Today we're opening applications for our 2025/26 Jazz Recording Project! If you're a jazz compose...
03/10/2025

📣 Applications open! 📣 Today we're opening applications for our 2025/26 Jazz Recording Project! If you're a jazz composer who wants to have 30 minutes of your music professionally recorded (audio and video), then this is for you. We're particularly excited to be growing this opportunity by opening it up to a composer whose ensemble can record in either Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch, early next year. Apply through our website by November 14!

👉 https://sounz.org.nz/sounz-jazz-recordings-project

01/10/2025

Julian Bliss throws everything the clarinet can do (and a few things that we think might technically be impossible?) into this performance of Eve de Castro-Robinson Composer's 'Undercurrents'. From murmured improvised mumblings to intense high acrobatics, this work for solo clarinet shows the full pitch and dynamic range of the instrument.

Performed as part of the 2024 At the World's Edge Festival. Audio recorded by Adrian Hollay for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

Keith Moss is busy preparing to have his new work, Chamber Dances, premiered next week. He’s chosen to write for two mal...
30/09/2025

Keith Moss is busy preparing to have his new work, Chamber Dances, premiered next week. He’s chosen to write for two mallet percussionists alongside a reed quintet - oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, and bass clarinet - that's seven reeds by our count!

We sat down with Keith to learn more about his compositional philosophy and how he came to write for this particular combination of instruments.

🎷 https://sounz.org.nz/articles/keith-korero 🎷

30/09/2025

Hear Tāhuna Queenstown's landscapes as described through Estella Wallace's string quartet 'Lonely Peaks'. Written as part of her 2024 At the World's Edge Festival emerging composer residency, 'Lonely Peaks' shows the Remarkables and the Shotover River at their most majestic.

Performed by Sarah Lee (violin), Alexi Kenney (violin), Tal Amoore (viola) and Christine Yeon (cello) as part of At the World's Edge Festival, Te Atamira, Queenstown, 11 October 2024.

Audio recorded by Adrian Hollay for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

28/09/2025

In this moving dedication to her friend, and fellow composer Gerard Crotty, Eve de Castro-Robinson Composer explores the full range of emotions that the solo cello can depict. Hear cellist Sterling Elliott move seamlessly from chorale-like double stopped sections to expressive, lamenting melodies, in this touching elegy for a friend.

Performed as part of the 2024 At the World's Edge Festival. Audio recorded by Adrian Hollay for RNZ Concert. Filmed by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.

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PO Box 27347 Or Level 3, Toi Poneke Arts Centre, 61 Abel Smith Street
Wellington
6011

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+6448018602

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