Farr-Out Trio – Atawhai Martin (violin), Purotu Martin (cello), Matthew He (piano)
Farr-Out Trio from Whangarei celebrated their ethnic diversity with a New Zealand work - Gareth Farr’s ‘Ahi’.
This piece was originally composed in 1998 for The Ogen Trio, whose members were Kiwi, American and Bulgarian musicians.
“Ahi” in te reo Māori means “Fire”.
Farr-Out Trio recognise that fire is associated with dynamism, energy, liveliness, passion, spirit, love, a flame in battles, and a light in the darkness among many other qualities.
The musical worlds change in each of the work’s four movements. The flavour of a French lullaby pours out of the first. An intense and unrelenting second movement harbours overtones of a Russian military factory. The Balinese pop-inspired fourth movement contains numerous gamelan-like effects.
Recorded by RNZ, Auckland Town Hall, 3 August 2019
Producer: Tim Dodd, Engineer: Adrian Hollay