(SSAATTBB choir, piano 4-hands, and fixed electronics) 25'
Programme note
The longer I am away from home, the more often I find myself considering what it means to be a New Zealander, and what special traits we hold up as particular to our sense of ourselves and who we aspire to be.
I wanted to write a piece about New Zealanders who have stood against prevailing calls for war and who suffered in different ways for the positions they took. Pacific sets to music the words of three well-known New Zealand peace advocates: Te Whiti o Rongomai III, Archibald Baxter, and David Lange. Each offered profoundly moving arguments against aggression, and each paid a high price for their courage in the face of a much more powerful aggressor. In each case, their words came to change the course of New Zealand history, and change the way we think about ourselves.
Pacific was made possible with the support of the Peace and Disarmament Education Trust.
