The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

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8
1965-1980
By 1966, Lilburn had almost totally turned his back on writing
music for traditional instruments. His Nine Short Pieces for Piano,
completed in that year, was to be the last significant composition for a
conventional medium.
electronic medium.
Lilburn's interests now lay firmly with the
Work on the Electronic Music Studio continued, as equipment
ordered from overseas began to arrive -
professional Philips tape
recorders, Brenell tape decks, an AKG microphone and EMT Reverberation
unit. By October 1966, the EMS/VUW (Electronic Music Studio at Victoria
University of Wellington) in the basement of the Hunter building, was
ready for its official opening.
"What was achieved then may now be described
as a small 'classical' studio, a pioneering
enterprise some years ahead of equivalent
work in Australian and English Universities.
The basic aims were to provide a research and
compositional centre to keep New Zealand
abreast with Overseas technological
developments, to provide a teaching facility
for new courses in the Music Department, to
provide a library of tapes of new music and
a forum for discussion of it, to keep open
house for interested visitors at all levels
of music education and, practically, to
provide a new sound product·for use within
the community by broadcasting, television,
film, theatre, ballet, and selected commercial
sponsors whose financial recognition
contributes to the development of the studios,,,1
Lilburn continued his close association with the New Zealand
Broadcasting Corporation Drama Department for a number of years following
the opening of this studio, as well as resuming his interest in the
theatre. Incidental music written from 1966 includes: for the New Zealand
Broadcasting Corporation, The Spiral Tattoo (1966) and Hot Spring (1968)
by Adele Schafer, He Tohu 0 Waharoa (1969) by James Ritchie, and The Wide
Open Case (1973) by James K. Baxter; and for theatre companies, The
Golden Lover (1967) by Douglas Stewart directed by Richard Campion for
Douglas Lilburn, Introductory notes in accompanying booklet to
KIWI SLD-44/46, p.8.