Nathaniel Otley, standing on higher ground. Photo: Supplied / Nathaniel Otley
Nathaniel Otley remembers 3 June 2015 well. He recalls the walk home from school, wading through thigh-deep water, trying his hardest to keep his violin dry.
While his South Dunedin home wasn't the worst affected, he remembers how badly neighbouring homes were flooded.
Perhaps that's when nature sowed the seeds for his latest musical creation, "this rising tide, these former wetlands" which the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra will premier in two concerts on 16 and 17 August.
2015 was supposed to be a one-in-a-hundred-year flood for the district, but it has continued to suffer floods since.
The problem for South Dunedin is it's built on a former swamp, it's densely populated and much of it is barely above sea level, while the mighty Pacific Ocean is just on the other side of the dunes that mark the suburb's southern boundary.
Otley says the music for the piece didn't come immediately after the flood, but he knew he wanted to create an artistic response to the event, and the changing global climate driving it and other similar floods.
It was just a matter of when he'd be ready.
That opportunity came earlier this year when the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) commissioned him to write a major work.
RNZ Concert spoke with Otley ahead of the work's premiere.
While these days he lives in New York with his partner, fellow composer and fellow Otago native Ihlara McIndoe, Otley has been back in Dunedin since May working on the electronic aspect of "this rising tide, these former wetlands".
That's involved recording interviews with flood survivors, and also natural and human sounds around South Dunedin - everything from the pounding surf of the south coast, to the sound of the Hillside Railway Workshops.
Otley will edit these sounds to accompany the orchestra during the work.
"this rising tide, these former wetlands" will get its premiere in South Dunedin, as part of two Dunedin Symphony Orchestra concerts at the King's and Queen's Performing Arts Centre that also feature the music of Mozart and Astor Piazzolla, with violin soloist Amalia Hall.
Given Otley's close ties with South Dunedin (the family home is still there), given he's a keen surfer (and South Dunedin has two of the best surf beaches in New Zealand) and given his partner is also from Otago, do they have any plans to return to Otago?
Not in the near future, he says, as both have taken on doctoral study in New York.
Hopefully when and if they do return, most of the suburb will still be above water.
South Dunedin: not many places for the water to go. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
