Sunrise Music from NZ for Young Pianists (WPIG)

This book is the celebration of new sounds, new ideas and new music written by New Zealand composers at home and abroad.

It will appeal to young pianists, their families and their teachers, and is suitable for students of preliminary through to grade 2 levels. For the younger student there are pieces which can be taught by rote. There is also a scattering of slightly more advanced pieces to challenge themore adventurous. The inclusion of a duet, a duo for voice with piano, and a trio for six hands at one piano (with optional percussion) enlarges its scope and will intrigue some to further expectations.

Sounds and sights distinctive to New Zealand and the Pacificalso feature in the book. There are references to Polynesian choral singing and to New Zealand landscape and birdlife. There is the Tui, a bird with two voice boxes, one producing bell-like tones, the other a harsh warning cry; the Pukeko, a long-striding, red-beaked, deep blue swamp hen; the huge extinct Moa which lives on in popular imagination; and there are P_enguins_ ofcourse the Taniwha, a mythological water monster.

The idea for this book arose when a committee member, Mary Barber, suggested that the Wellington Piano and Instrumental Group commission a new piano piece for a beginner pianist from a New Zealand composer. from this suggestion for a single commission grew the project to produce this book.

A CD of the music is included with the book.