Creating music at a price

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 17

Creating music at a price

If someone donates six dozen pencils to composer Chloe Moon she might be inspired to write a piece for a full symphony orchestra. But if that does not happen, or if pencils do not drop in price — the piece may remain unwritten.

In the meantime, Miss Moon has put pencil to paper to create what she describes as “contemporary music for everything.” That music is now being composed for live performances, radio broadcasts, and even on request. The Christchurch composer also manages to fit in a few pieces for her students at the University of Canterbury's music department, where she is now back teaching after once being a pupil.

“The main reason I write for the students is because music is so expensive to . buy and takes so long to arrive from overseas. Quite often music does not arrive until August and the students finish in October.

“This way I can write something immediately and next week they can perform it.”

Miss Moon has been composing since her high school days. As a university student studying composition, she also specialised in the violin.

For a while the violin won out over composition, and Miss Moon established herself as a member of the Camerata String Quartet, which was attached to the university.

She was .then awarded a scholarship to study violin and composition in Belgium. Miss Moon chose to study in Ghent, a remote area of the country, because she wanted to learn from a particular teacher.

“Unfortunately I arrived to find that he had not been there for a year,” she said.

After all the “hassles” of getting there, she decided to stay. “From a violin point of view the stay was probably

not that marvellous. But musically and socially it was great.” Miss Moon's major problem was grasping the language of the region.

“Flemish is difficult. You cannot join a language school after November 1 there, and as November 1 fell during a holiday week, I went back after the break to be told it was too late."

She managed however, with a combination of English, German and French. “It was hard walking into a supermarket and not recognising any names, and then not knowing what to do with the packet once you bought it."

Miss Moon later returned to Christchurch and the university music department, where she now teaches, harmony and counterpoint classes, keyboard classes and composition classes. “One of the marvellous things about working here is that each year you never know which students you are going to have, or what instruments they play — so each year I try to write something different." She describes her composing as a mixture of “a bit of luck and a lot of hard work.”

“You have to make a nuisance of yourself and keep on telling people ‘I have got this piece here, why don't you take a look at it?’ ” Miss Moon believes that a composer should have a good technique, and be able to compose on demand. She played with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra for a while, but found it hard to go into a rehearsal and play something written by someone else after she had just sorted out her own composition. Earlier in her life, Miss Moon decided she would never be good enough on the violin to satisfy herself, so concentrated on composition. She appears to be satisfied with her choice.