From the police to The Piano: Alice Morgan's Matariki homecoming
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.
Saxophonist Alice Morgan
Photo:
Supplied
Alice Morgan is on the line from her Sydney workplace - the New South Wales Police.
She's not a member of the force, at least not the part of the force that sometimes asks you to help them with their inquiries.
But she is a full-time member of the NSW Police Band, and she's speaking to RNZ from its practice rooms, ahead of returning to her home town to play Tony Ryan's saxophone concerto this Sunday.
It's part of an all-New Zealand Matariki Concert by the Resonance Ensemble in
Christchurch's music venue The Piano
.
Morgan's job as musician on the police beat is just one part of her multi-faceted career which ranges from playing saxophone with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, to chamber music, to music programming.
Tony Ryan wrote his soprano sax concerto for Mark Hobson who was Morgan's teacher when she was growing up in Christchurch.
Saxophonist Alice Morgan
Photo:
Supplied
She's excited to be coming back to play the work with the composer conducting.
Morgan spoke to RNZ Concert about her decision to leave Christchurch to study in Sydney, and then her decision to stay once she'd completed her studies.
These days she also plays the clarinet, and when not making music you'll find her helping to organise music festivals in the Blue Mountains or programming concerts for the young-at-heart orchestra
Ensemble Apex
.
Its latest gig involved seating the audience onstage with the orchestra for a performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.
Next time they plan to do it with Stravinsky's
The Rite of Spring
.
Morgan also performs chamber music, and loves playing new works, like the piece in the video below. Swivel & Swerve was written especially for her by Holly Harrison.
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RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Alice Morgan's Matariki homecoming
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Saxophonist Alice Morgan Photo: Supplied Alice Morgan is on the line from her Sydney workplace, ahead of her return to Aotearoa. This Sunday she'll be back in her home town to play Tony Ryan's saxophone concerto - part of an all-New Zealand Matariki Concert by the Resonance Ensemble in Christchurch's music venue The Piano . Morgan's latest gig is part of a multi-faceted career which ranges from playing saxophone with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, to chamber music, to music programming. Tony Ryan wrote his soprano sax concerto for Mark Hobson who was Morgan's teacher when she was growing up in Christchurch. Saxophonist Alice Morgan Photo: Supplied She's excited to be coming back to play the work with the composer conducting. Morgan spoke to RNZ Concert about her decision to leave Christchurch to study in Sydney, and then her decision to stay once she'd completed her studies. These days she also plays the clarinet, and when not making music you'll find her helping to organise music festivals in the Blue Mountains or programming concerts for the young-at-heart orchestra Ensemble Apex . Its latest gig involved seating the audience onstage with the orchestra for a performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. Morgan also performs chamber music, and loves playing new works, like the piece in the video below. Swivel & Swerve was written especially for her by Holly Harrison.
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
From the police to The Piano: Alice Morgan's Matariki homecoming
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Saxophonist Alice Morgan Photo: Supplied Alice Morgan is on the line from her Sydney workplace - the New South Wales Police. She's not a member of the force, at least not the part of the force that sometimes asks you to help them with their inquiries. But she is a full-time member of the NSW Police Band, and she's speaking to RNZ from its practice rooms, ahead of returning to her home town to play Tony Ryan's saxophone concerto this Sunday. It's part of an all-New Zealand Matariki Concert by the Resonance Ensemble in Christchurch's music venue The Piano . Morgan's job as musician on the police beat is just one part of her multi-faceted career which ranges from playing saxophone with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, to chamber music, to music programming. Tony Ryan wrote his soprano sax concerto for Mark Hobson who was Morgan's teacher when she was growing up in Christchurch. Saxophonist Alice Morgan Photo: Supplied She's excited to be coming back to play the work with the composer conducting. Morgan spoke to RNZ Concert about her decision to leave Christchurch to study in Sydney, and then her decision to stay once she'd completed her studies. These days she also plays the clarinet, and when not making music you'll find her helping to organise music festivals in the Blue Mountains or programming concerts for the young-at-heart orchestra Ensemble Apex . Its latest gig involved seating the audience onstage with the orchestra for a performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. Next time they plan to do it with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring . Morgan also performs chamber music, and loves playing new works, like the piece in the video below. Swivel & Swerve was written especially for her by Holly Harrison.
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Brian Wilson, music icon and creative force behind The Beach Boys, has died at 82
By Christina Maxouris , CNN Brian Wilson, leader and co-founder of the Beach Boys, performs at ACL Live on May 13, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Photo: AFP / Suzanne Cordeiro Brian Wilson, cofounder of the Beach Boys and the creative force behind the group's surf sound, orchestral arrangements and perfect harmonies, has died, his family announced on Wednesday (US time). He was 82. "We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away," his family wrote in the statement shared on Instagram and his official website. "We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world." CNN has reached out to representatives for Wilson for comment. Wilson's life was marked just as much by struggles of substance abuse and mental illness as it was by repeated comebacks, remarkable talent and timeless songs that still echo across the country, decades after their release. His story, by all accounts, is one of resilience. Despite a childhood scarred by his father's abuse, becoming partially deaf, and the years of haunting voices in his head from schizoaffective disorder, the two-time Grammy Award winner went on to become the "reigning king of pop melody", as the Denver Post once put it, often bringing to life songs that told a much different tale than his own reality. "That is probably why I wrote those happy songs. I try to get as close to paradise as I can," Wilson told The New York Times Magazine in 2004. Over the decades, many have revered his genius. "I don't think you'd be out of line comparing him to Beethoven," Tom Petty once said. In 2001, CNN credited Wilson as the creator of "some of history's most intricately woven pop songs". "He managed to both distill a simplicity of human emotion out of his songs and yet, do something that's so artistically complex and beautiful," musician Don Was once marvelled about Wilson during an interview. Rolling Stone magazine in 2023 named Wilson one of the 200 greatest singers of all time. In the Beach Boys, Wilson found a family that accepted his perfectionism and eccentricity - he did, after all, install a giant beach sand box under his piano for inspiration. And later, as a solo artist, he revisited and released the one project he couldn't fulfill while in the group: the SMiLE album that Wilson called a "teenage symphony to God" and looked back on as his greatest accomplishment. Read more : The oldest of three brothers, Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California. His love for music began early, but so did the abuse from his father, who, during bouts of rage and depression, would beat Wilson with a belt or take out his artificial eyeball (he'd lost an eye in an industrial accident) and make Wilson look at the empty space. Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys performs onstage at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards held at Staples Centre on February 12, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: AFP / Getty Images / Kevin Winter Wilson used music to escape, and his life was always shaped by the melodies around him - with some of his greatest influences including the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, George Gershwin and, at one time, the Beatles. In 1961, Wilson wrote his first original melody in 'Surfer Girl', according to the biography on his official website. The same year, Wilson and cousin Mike Love wrote 'Surfin', recording the song with Wilson's brothers, Dennis, and Carl, and friend Al Jardine - and soon after becoming known as the Beach Boys. The song was included in the group's 1962 debut album, Surfin Safari. The Beach Boys during a concert at the Gaumont Palace, in Paris on December 8, 1970. Photo: Roger-Viollet via AFP / Christian Rose But the high demands of a relentless industry proved too much and in late December 1964, Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown and stopped touring, becoming a full-time studio artist for the better part of more than a decade after that. "I probably had a little too much too soon," he speculated to CNN's Larry King in 2004. It would mark the beginning of his experience with depression, which Wilson said never really went away. (Even in 2019, Wilson postponed a tour and said that he had been feeling "mentally insecure" at the time and was grappling "with stuff in my head.") Wilson went on to compose, arrange and produce the legendary Pet Sounds album alongside songwriter Tony Asher, with a single goal in mind: to create the "greatest rock album ever made." It was released May 16, 1966. The 13-track album, which now holds the No 2 spot on Rolling Stone's 2021 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time," has become the group's landmark record. Paul McCartney - who Wilson has referred to as one of his heroes - once called the record "unbeatable in many ways." Brian Wilson is joined on stage by the members of Wilson Phillips, his daughters Carney Wilson (2nd from L) and Wendy Wilson, right, , and Chyna Phillips, 2nd from right, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York 29 March, 2001. Photo: AFP / Henny Ray Abrams While bringing to life many of the band's iconic songs, Wilson was also plunging deep into his personal hell, taking drugs including hashish, amphetamines and LSD. It was a sort of self-medication, he had said. "It's called 'nepenthe,'" he told King in 2004. "Alcohol and morphine - nepenthe means numbing the soul," he said, referring to a fictional antidote for sorrow mentioned in Ancient Greek literature. Wilson continued to spiral, at times spending days in bed. Around age 25, he began hearing voices: awful ones he desperately tried to tune out, which at times threatened to harm him. It was a symptom of schizoaffective disorder, Wilson said. "Every few minutes the voices say something derogatory to me," he told Ability Magazine in 2006. The only antidote for those proved to be singing, writing and being around his family, Wilson said. Wilson and his first wife, singer Marilyn Rovell, were divorced in 1979 after about 15 years of marriage. He met his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, in a car dealership in 1986, when she sold him a Cadillac. He released his first solo album - Brian Wilson - in 1988. His wife, Melinda, called that time the "Landy years" - a reference to the domineering therapist hired to help Wilson but who instead, according to the musician, overmedicated him, controlled him and banned communication with his friends or family, Wilson and Melinda told King in the 2004 interview. (After a 1991 settlement, Landy was banned from having any contact with the artist.) Wilson married Melinda in 1995. He pointed to her as a critical backbone and support system during his struggles, and the one who helped him take his life back. After her death, Wilson called her his "saviour." In 2004, came a stunning resurrection: more than 35 years since its inception, Wilson revisited the "SMiLE" project and with the help of lyricist Van Dyke Parks and band member Darian Sahanaja, performed the entire finished album at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He released the Brian Wilson Presents Smile album in September 2004. Wilson has called it his "biggest accomplishment ever." "I get the impression that Brian knew he was running out of time and if he was going to present the work he'd have to make a decision to do it and no longer be embarrassed that he had followed his own madness as a 24-year-old composer," Parks told The New York Times at the time. In May 2024, after his wife Melinda died, a judge ruled to place Wilson under a conservatorship, to which the musician agreed to. Court documents said Wilson had a "major neurocognitive disorder" and was unable to care for himself, CNN reported. In Wilson's mind, the Beach Boys - as the world knew them - broke up in 1998, after Carl Wilson died of lung cancer. Dennis Wilson died in 1983 in a swimming accident. For all the sorrow and internal battles that haunted his life, Wilson never forgot about the things that made him happy: his wife, his children and music, above all else. "They're the light of my life. Nothing brings joy into my life like my children," Wilson told Ability Magazine in 2006. "My children and my music are my two greatest loves." In his interview with the magazine, Wilson said he had found ways to overcome the darkest days of his mental health conditions with the help of medication and regular visits with a psychiatrist. On what gets him through the day, he said: "I walk five miles a day in the morning, I eat really good food, I get a little sleep at night-four or five hours, sometimes six if I'm lucky-and I use my love with people. I use love as a way to get along with people." And when the going got tougher, he said he got through it with his willpower - which he, fittingly, called "Wilson Power." CNN's Todd Leopold contributed to this report.
