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

In 1970, Lilburn was simultaneously appointed Professor at the
Victoria University of Wellington with a Personal Chair in Music, and
Director of the Electronic Music Studio.
J42
1970 was also the final year of
Frederick Page's tenure as Professor of Music at the University.
Page
was succeeded the following year by Jenny McLeod, and another composer,
Ross Harr1s,was .. appo1nted to the staf f' as a Jun10r . I ecturer. 21
In 1970 also, Lilburn was invited to participate in the creation
of the New Zealand programme for the EXPO '70 exhibition,-scheduled to be
held in Osaka, Japan.
His contribution was to take the form of realising
the electronic score for portions of the multi-media entertainment Green
Are the Islands, a large-scale work that was to be performed in New
Zealand's National Day Show at the Osaka plaza. Lilburn's score was
for a dance sequence devised by Richard Campion, choreographed by Leigh
Brewer and designed by Para Matchett.
"The dancers were to represent a White Heron,
two Huias, a Kiwi, four Fantails, a Tuatara,
four Kakas, a Pukeko, two large and one small
Moas. With help from Wildlife Division of
the Department of Internal Affairs and other
researchers, I gained some few authentic sounds.
But extinct Huias and Moas had to be made vocal
from a variety of sources, Fantails had to be
turned electronically into circus acrobats, and
a Tuatara had to be twenty-fold amplified into
a Moko, a dragon lizard. All these sounds had
to be edited into rhythmic sequences for the
dancers."22
The cast assembled for Green are the Islands included Kiri Te Kanawa,
Inia Te Wiata, the New Zealand Brass Band, the New Zealand Maori Theatre
Trust, members of the New Zealand Ballet Company, and 120 sailors from
the frigate Taranaki.
In May of 1972, the Electronic Music Studio at Victoria was given
notice that it had to vacate the Hunter-Building basement as the basement
was required for extensions to the Law Library. The studio was allocated
new premises on the top floor of an old house at 44 Kelburn Parade.
An accoustics consultant; Rod Sartory, was contracted to make a
feasibility study on the soundproofing of these new premises. Once it
was affirmed that the premises could be satisfactorily soundproofed, the
Building Superintendent at the University supervised the insulation of
21 Victoria University of Wellington Calendar 1970.
22 Douglas Lilburn, in accompanying booklet to KIWI SLD-44/46, p.9.