Conversations With Death is a short composition by George Smith and was written from October 2023 to February 2024. It is about George’s struggles with depression and anxiety. Rather than recreating the individual daily struggles of mental illness, the piece is a meditation on the composer’s overall experience with depression, anxiety, and contemplation of death and suicide. Conversations With Death was originally written for recording, however it was reorchestrated to be performed in a concert context. The composition is written in an intimate and inward looking style that is a hybrid of orchestral and ambient music, focusing on slow shifts in sound, harmony, and texture. George is greatly inspired by composers such as Brian Eno, who is the pioneer of ambient music, as well as composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who has also created ambient music and pioneered a hybrid style of ambient and orchestral music. This piece is also influenced by the more intimate and reflective composition and orchestration of Japanese composers such as Takashi Yoshimatsu, Toru Takemitsu, and Joe Hisaishi. The gentle orchestration of the piece is inspired from George’s experience scoring and orchestrating film music.
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/Hamish McKeich
2024 NZ Composer Sessions, recorded in Wellington's Michael Fowler Centre, 4 October, 2024 by RNZ Concert in partnership with the NZSO and SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music.
David Houston, producer & engineer
Marc Chesterman, assistant engineer
