Radio Week
A closer look at volcanoes
by Fiona Rae
SATURDAY DECEMBER 13
Saturday Morning with Kim Hill, Radio New Zealand National, 8.10am. Hill’s guest today is New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell; he is famous for upending conventional wisdom in his books The Tipping Point and Blink. His latest offering, Outliers: The Story of Success, is “in its genteel Gladwellian way,” said Time magazine, “a frontal assault on the great American myth of the self-made man”. Also today, American singer-songwriter John Darnielle, who is known for his prolific output and highly literate, personal lyrics. Since 1991, his outfit, the Mountain Goats, has released 16 albums and numerous singles and EPs. The band is touring and plays gigs in Wellington and Auckland.
The Quincy Conserve Chronicles, Radio New Zealand National, 4.10pm. Now there’s a name from New Zealand’s rock’n’roll past. Quincy Conserve was our answer to Blood, Sweat & Tears. Keith Newman tracks down former members of the band that was put together in 1967 by Malcolm Hayman to fill a residency at Wellington’s Downtown Club. The group merged Maori showband stylings- with blues and soul, eventually becoming the go-to backing band for acts such as Allison Durban, Craig Scott, Shane and Suzanne. The Quincys pioneered the Lion -Breweries club circuit and for a while were the biggest crowd-pullers in the country.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 14
Spectrum, Radio New Zealand National, 12.15pm. Sapna Samant meets a New Zealand immigrant who is known as the “baby turner”, which sounds like some sort of frightening woodwork experiment, but actually relates to the turning of breech babies. Dr Maha Haddad and her husband left Iraq in 1994 and have watched the mayhem in their native country with horror since then. She now works at Auckland Hospital, helping mothers to have normal deliveries.
The Sunday Drama, Radio New Zealand National, 3.04pm. Author, bushman, husband six times: Barry Crump was, you could politely say, complicated. Christchurch playwright In his drama Crumpy, Carl Nixon pulls together the strands of a colourful life, from Crump’s wild bushman days in the 1950s, to his time as a writer, -celebrity, father and husband. The drama explores how Crump used his charismatic personality and how his father’s influence dominated his life.
The Sunday Feature, Radio New Zealand National, 4.07pm. We lava this week’s episode of Earthworks: it heads into dangerous territory, specifically the Taupo volcanic zone, and is entitled “The Belly of the Beast”. How great is the threat from below and, conversely, how can a volcano be good for us?
TUESDAY DECEMBER 16
Sound Lounge, Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm. Tan Dun dislikes being described as an East-West fusion composer, explains producer Roger Smith. Nevertheless, that is where you will find Tan, he says, “dancing on the rumbling fault-line between the tectonic plates of two massive operatic traditions”. Crikey, that is a clever trick. Mind you, Tea: A Mirror of Soul features sounds made with water, paper and stone and placed the NZSO up front so they could rustle the pages of their scores. This performance from the 2006 International Arts Festival was “more than just opera; it was the full music theatre experience”, said reviewer William Dart. It blended “oriental mysticism and soundscapes with moments of Puccinian ecstasy”.
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 17
Music Alive, Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm. Although the subject is Christmas, the melodies have pre-Christian origins in Greek music, based on modes and chords described by Pythagoras. This concert of Orthodox-Byzantine seasonal music was recorded in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Lugoj, Romania.
THURSDAY DECEMBER 18
Appointment, Radio New Zealand Concert, 7.00pm. André Previn is one of the most well-known musicians of the modern era. His illustrious career includes a knighthood in 1996, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center in 1998 and the Glenn Gould Prize in Toronto in 2006. He continues to compose and conduct; his latest work, Owls, premiered in October with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is this year’s Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and is profiled tonight by Erica Challis.
FRIDAY DECEMBER 19
Womad Taranaki 2008, Radio New Zealand National, 11.06pm. Being musical director of the All Star Gala was a “scary business”, Don McGlashan said in a Womadelaide podcast: he wanted to avoid the one-big-jam approach. In Taranaki, the line-up included flute player Guo Yue, drummers- Bill Cobham and Naghib Shanbehzadeh and members of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. To end the night, and this series of recordings, there was an all-in version of Hunters & Collectors’ Throw Your Arms Around Me.
