OCKHAM AWARD WINNER’S POETRY INSPIRED BY THE WHANGANUI RIVER SET TO MUSIC
Whanganui musician and composer Elizabeth de Vegt has worked with local musicians to record ‘Final whistle’’ a song based on a poem of the same name by Airini Beautrais’ from her 2017 Ockham longlisted poetry collection ‘Flow’.
The new single was recorded at The Stomach in Palmerston North by de Vegt and her band ‘The Flow Collective’ which includes Hamish Jellyman, Andrew Wetherall, Brad McMillan and Elise Goodge, a taonga puoro specialist.
‘Final whistle’ was written in 2021 as part of the larger project ‘Flow: Beautrais x de Vegt,’ an album inspired by Beautrais’ poetry collection ‘Flow’. At the time of recording the album the ‘Final whistle’ composition was incomplete and therefore not included. It was subsequently premiered at the album release concert in March 2022 and finally recorded late in 2022.
The single ‘Final whistle’ is being released to coincide with New Zealand Music Month. “Airini’s poem represents the pain of shared experiences coming to an end.” Elizabeth reflects “It is a way of life suddenly becoming a memory, I related to the subject matter because of the changes the pandemic forced upon all artists and the impact of those changes on our industry.”
The single has been released with a complimentary music video documenting the recording process. The single is available on Spotify for streaming and download. The video can be viewed on YouTube under The Flow Collective.
Elizabeth de Vegt and The Flow Collective are currently touring the complete show ‘Flow: Beautrais x de Vegt’, including the new single, to towns throughout Aotearoa. Follow them on social media to see where they will be performing next.
The album ‘Flow’ was released by Wellington label, Oro Records on Saturday 5 March 2022.
BACKGROUND
In the same year, 2017, the Te Awa Tupua Bill was passed in parliament, granting the Whanganui River legal personhood, Okham Award Winner, Airini Beautrais, released a collection of poetry named Flow. Published by Victoria University Press, Flow explores the Whanganui River from its geological formations to its people and its history, both Māori and colonial. In her review of the book Elizabeth Morton writes, “With Beautrais’ collection, every poem feels necessarily placed, perfectly considered, and yet surprising. This is a work that demonstrates the potency of this poet, her range, and her ability to use language to take the reader dancing.”
It was Beautrais’ breadth of poetic form, use of rhythmic pentameters and rhyme that first inspired Whanganui based composer, Elizabeth de Vegt, to set some of her poems to music. De Vegt completed a Masters of Music, with first class honours and was the Creative Performing Arts Person of the Year in 2009 at The University of Waikato. It was late in 2020, after a difficult year of lockdowns, interrupted work and two small children to care for that de Vegt found compositional inspiration in Flow and approached Beautrais for permission to work with her words. “At first I just planned to work with two or three poems,” de Vegt says, “but very quickly I had already completed compositions for seven. I eventually capped it at fifteen and realised I had created an entire body of compositional work.”
The compositions were premiered to a live audience in March of 2021 in an outdoor setting, overlooking the Whanganui River, the creative life blood of the project. It was after this first public airing that de Vegt, again with Beautrias’ blessing, embarked on the next phase of the project, a recording. De Vegt enlisted more Whanganui musical talent, Hamish Jellyman, Andrew Wetherall, Brad McMillan and Elise Goodge to add further flesh to her compositions. Facilitating percussive and melodic layers and adding Taonga Puoro (traditional Māori musical instruments) to appropriate stories within the songs.
Before recording could begin a period of consultation with Te Runanga o Tupoho was undertaken. Renowned Whanganui artist and designer Cecelia Kumeroa, Tupoho Arts Representative, and Sacha Te Utupoto Keating generously agreed to consult on the project. Their advice resulted in some alterations and affirmations, giving the musicians assurance that the final compositions appropriately and sensitively represent the Māori stories shared.
At the beginning of January 2022 de Vegt and accompanists recorded all fifteen compositions within The Royal Whanganui Opera House. With its proscenium and dome betraying its late Victorian design the musicians and engineers wished to capture the unique auditory qualities of the space in the recordings. To this end it was decided to record every song live. Months of rehearsal were undertaken to make the renditions as perfect as possible. On the final day of recordings an audience of invited locals joined the musicians on stage to add yet another layer of context to the project, the Whanganui River community.
The final recordings were released as an album appropriately named, Flow, on Saturday 5 March 2022.
Band website www.flowalbum.com
Band instagram https://www.instagram.com/TheFlowCollectiveNZ/
Band Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheFlowCollectiveNZ/