Gillian Whitehead facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dame
Gillian Whitehead
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Whitehead in 2008
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Gillian Karawe Whitehead
23 April 1941 Hamilton, New Zealand
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| Occupation | Classical composer |
Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead (born April 23, 1941) is a famous composer from New Zealand. She is part of the Māori Ngāi Te Rangi tribe. Her Māori background has really inspired her music.
Contents
Early Life and Musical Beginnings
Gillian Whitehead was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1941. Her father was a music teacher and led a choir. Her mother played the piano. So, music was a big part of her family! Gillian started composing music when she was young. By age 17, she knew she wanted to be a composer.
Education and Learning Music
Gillian studied music at the University of Auckland from 1959 to 1962. Then, she went to Victoria University of Wellington and earned her music degree in 1964. She continued her studies in Australia at the University of Sydney. There, she learned composition from a famous composer named Peter Sculthorpe. In 1967, she traveled to England to keep learning from another great composer, Peter Maxwell Davies.
Her Career as a Composer
Gillian Whitehead lived in London for two years, writing and copying music. She also worked in Portugal and Italy. For the next seven years, she was a freelance composer, mostly based in the United Kingdom. This means she worked for herself, taking on different music projects.
From 1978 to 1980, she was a "Composer in Residence" at Newcastle University in England. This meant she worked there as a composer. In 1981, she moved back to Australia. She joined the staff at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She even became the Head of Composition for four years!
After 1996, Gillian spent most of her time in New Zealand, especially in Dunedin. She was a Composer in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington in 1989. In 1992, she received the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago. This is a special award for artists.
From 2000 to 2001, she was the Composer in Residence for the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. During this time, she wrote a major orchestral piece called The Improbable Ordered Dance. This work won a big award in 2001 called the SOUNZ Contemporary Award.
Gillian was also the president of the Composers Association of New Zealand from 1998 to 2003. In 2005–2006, she was the Composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music. She was the first composer to stay at the Lilburn Residence. In 2009, she was an artist-in-residence in Alexandra.
Her Musical Compositions
Gillian Whitehead has written many different kinds of music. She has composed pieces for:
- Solo instruments
- Chamber groups (small groups of musicians)
- Choirs
- Orchestras (large groups of musicians)
- Operas (musical plays)
Many of her works were specially asked for by performers and organizations. Some of her music has been recorded and released for people to buy. This includes a CD of her chamber works and a recording of her opera, Outrageous Fortune.
Outrageous Fortune (1998) was written to celebrate 150 years since the city of Dunedin was founded. Another opera she wrote is The Art of Pizza (1995). This opera is about refugees and is set in a shopping mall.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra asked Gillian to write a piece to remember 250 years since Captain Cook arrived in New Zealand. She created Turanga-nui (2018). This name refers to Gisborne, where Cook first landed. In 2020, she wrote a special piece for a group called Juilliard451 from the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
How Māori Heritage Influenced Her Music
Since her time in London, Gillian Whitehead has used Māori themes in her music. Her piece Pakuru (1967) is based on Māori sayings and the seasons. In the 1990s, she started using taonga pūoro (traditional Māori instruments) in her work. This happened after she met Hirini Melbourne and Richard Nunns.
She gave a lecture in 2019 about how she uses the sounds of taonga pūoro. Other works that show her Māori heritage include:
- Ahotu (ō matenga) (1984)
- Outrageous Fortune (1998)
- Hineraukatauri (1999)
- Hine-pu-te-hue (2001)
Using Magic Squares in Music
Gillian Whitehead has also used something called "magic squares" in her compositions. These are special grids of numbers. She first learned about them in the 1970s and used them for about 20 years. Later, she started to use them more freely. She would combine prime numbers and squares in new ways. Even though squares were a starting point, she later began to compose more by instinct.
Awards and Special Honours
Gillian Whitehead has received many important awards for her contributions to music:
- In 1999, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
- The Arts Foundation of New Zealand gave her two awards: an Arts Foundation Laureate in 2000 and an Arts Foundation Icon in 2018.
- Victoria University of Wellington gave her an honorary music degree in 2003.
- In 2007, she received the KBB/CANZ Citation for Services to Music from the Composers Association.
- In 2008, she was promoted to Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
- In 2009, she accepted the title of Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. This means she is now known as "Dame Gillian Whitehead."
Selected Musical Works
Here are some examples of the different types of music Gillian Whitehead has created:
Orchestral Music
- Resurgences (1989)
- … the improbable ordered dance … (2000)
- Turanga-nui (2017)
Operas
- Tristan and Iseult (1976)
- The Art of Pizza (1995)
- Outrageous Fortune (1998)
- Iris dreaming (2016)
Vocal and Instrumental Music
- Pakuru (1967)
- Inner Harbour (1979)
- Hotspur (1980)
Ensemble Music
- At night the garden was full of voices (1977)
- Ahotu (ō matenga) (1984)
- Clouds over Mata-au (2010)
