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by Gareth Farr | Piano Trio

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theatre, Māori kapa haka, contemporary dance and song, with Farr’s stirring music, and<br />

toured a number of centres in New Zealand. In 2006 Farr was awarded the Order of New<br />

Zealand Merit for his services to music and entertainment. That same year, the Royal New<br />

Zealand Ballet toured the country with their brand new work The Wedding, featuring a<br />

score by Farr. At ninety minutes, it was among the company’s most ambitious projects, and<br />

combined Farr’s talents with those of prominent New Zealand novelist and librettist Witi<br />

Ihimaera.<br />

In March of 2014 Farr’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra received its world premiere<br />

from soloist Tony Lee and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pietari<br />

Inkenen. Its UK premiere followed one year later, with Lee backed by the BBC Philharmonic,<br />

with conductor Tecwyn Evans. The concerto received critical acclaim with the Dominion<br />

Post’s John Button writing “…the ear was tickled bar after bar. I have no doubt that this<br />

marvellously inventive piano concerto is bound to develop an international life all its own.”<br />

More recently, Farr’s score for the opera The Bone Feeder received critical praise for its unique<br />

and imaginative articulation of intersecting cultures in New Zealand. Premiering at the 2017<br />

Auckland Arts Festival, Farr brought together instruments from Chinese, Western and Māori<br />

culture to create an exotic and balanced synthesis of sounds, with David Larsen of Metro<br />

Magazine commenting, “Farr’s textures and moods are wonderful: timbres mingle and shift in<br />

ways that are at once fascinating and symbolically appropriate.” In May of 2017, Farr’s Cello<br />

Concerto—subtitled Chemin des Dames—was premiered by French cellist Sébastien Hurtaud<br />

and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Wellington, New Zealand, followed by a<br />

performance in France, with Hurtaud joined by l’Orchestre national de Lorraine. The concerto<br />

is a tribute to the soldiers who fell on the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium,<br />

with critic William Dart stating, “In a work of impeccable atmosphere, welcoming for both<br />

players and audience, the weeping beauties of its central section stayed with me long into the<br />

evening.”<br />

In July of 2019, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra gave the world premiere of Farr’s<br />

Roar of a Thousand Tigers, a 35-minute, five-movement work commissioned by the Hillary<br />

Centenary Steering Committee and Clive Gilson to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of<br />

the birth of Sir Edmund Hillary, the legendary New Zealand mountaineer who, along with<br />

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, made history in 1953 by successfully reaching the summit of Mount<br />

Everest.<br />

Latest information about the composer may be found at www.garethfarr.com.<br />

PE039 – iv

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