Mixing and Mastering

Three days in Radio NZ Production Room B, with Graeme Kennedy and Steve Garden; working on reverbs, equalising, spacialisation, and automation. It sounded great to my ears before we went into RNZ, but after Graeme finessed the mix, we suddenly had a beautiful transparency and clarity in the textures, even the most active and dense passages. It was as though Steve and I had already focused the camera, but Graeme turned the lights on!

Even so, I found myself incredibly resistant to signing off the recordings and declaring them finished. After so much work; the composing, the refining through successive performances, the recording, editing, and mastering, it was time to finally say these pieces were ready to be released into the river of music in the world. Time to let them go.

The DVD material is working really well as a way into the music. The comments from Josh, Michael, Pedro, and Marc were all new to my ears. Ironic that this is how I get to hear views about my music that they might not share with me personally.

Launch

I’m thrilled that the Mayor of Wellington is hosting the launch and even more thrilled that the Prime Minister will be speaking. Here’s hoping the CDs are all delivered on time!

But what a week! The performance of VFO with the Auckland Philharmonia on the 21st (a day before the premiere of Zahara with the NZSO on the 22nd) means commuting between Wellington and Auckland for rehearsals which, for the composer on a good day, are agitato tension conventions. A highlight for me, has been the AUCKLAND PHILHARMONIA ’s agreement to allow us to promote the album at their performance of View From Olympus. This is an exceptional instance of goodwill as well as a demonstration of the APO’s level of confidence in itself. It probably doesn’t mean that much to most people but I appreciate their sense of the bigger picture.

Final Thoughts

Putting together the list of people and organizations I wanted to thank reminded me how much energy has been pooled to create VFO. So much artistic, financial, and philosophical commitment has converged on this project.

In LA early September I spoke with Jim Svejda on radio KUSC. We put together a 5-hour programme which included a broadcast of the entire CD to a massive audience (of millions) in the USA and on the web. A great first step for the album.

The more I listen to the master CD the more I can let go the long process of making these recordings a reality. Eight years after writing the first bars of Omnifenix I can finally experience these three pieces as I originally imagined them; with all of the dynamism and vitality, the boldness as well as the uncertainty, and the rapture and the melancholy, that went into them. And finally, I can sense in these recordings that simple desire which motivated each of the pieces: a wish to articulate and transmit a positive message through music.