title: Portfolio of compositions

authors: Tang, Xu

subjects: Music Composition

abstract: The compositions in this portfolio aim to synthesise aspects of contemporary Western classical composition with techniques from traditional Chinese classical music in a way unique to the composer. That aim generates a number of artistic and technical questions which require creative solutions. The portfolio of compositions addresses several of these issues, especially how to utilise selected performance techniques used in playing Chinese instruments such as qin, pipa and erhu on Western instruments such as the violin, cello and piano.
The portfolio includes music for a variety of ensembles. All the music was composed in 2014-15. The works span several genres, from the piano trio Bamboo Groves to the orchestral piece Shadow, Additionally, the piano trio Bamboo Groves integrates some sounds from the natural world into the composed musical texture, so stones, tree branches and water are played by the instrumentalists. The unusual and highly characterful ensemble of nine cellos, Cellophonics, which is based in the University of Waikato Conservatorium of Music, inspired the composition of Sun Wukong, the story being drawn from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The theatrical monodrama Lament of Mistress Xiang Lin requires two performers playing a prepared piano along with a soprano, and uses some electronic amplification.

text: Portfolio of compositions The compositions in this portfolio aim to synthesise aspects of contemporary Western classical composition with techniques from traditional Chinese classical music in a way unique to the composer. That aim generates a number of artistic and technical questions which require creative solutions. The portfolio of compositions addresses several of these issues, especially how to utilise selected performance techniques used in playing Chinese instruments such as qin, pipa and erhu on Western instruments such as the violin, cello and piano.
The portfolio includes music for a variety of ensembles. All the music was composed in 2014-15. The works span several genres, from the piano trio Bamboo Groves to the orchestral piece Shadow, Additionally, the piano trio Bamboo Groves integrates some sounds from the natural world into the composed musical texture, so stones, tree branches and water are played by the instrumentalists. The unusual and highly characterful ensemble of nine cellos, Cellophonics, which is based in the University of Waikato Conservatorium of Music, inspired the composition of Sun Wukong, the story being drawn from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The theatrical monodrama Lament of Mistress Xiang Lin requires two performers playing a prepared piano along with a soprano, and uses some electronic amplification.

year: 2015

title: Feminism and education in post-war New Zealand: a sociological analysis

authors: Middleton, Sue

abstract: For the purposes of this thesis, feminism has been viewed as both a set of social theories which identify, describe and account for the contradictions experienced by women in their everyday lives and the social movement which has developed and employed these theories to assist in generating political strategies aimed at redressing social inequalities and injustices recognised as based, wholly or in part, on gender. Since the late 1960s, many New Zealand educators have been influenced by feminism. Although feminist social scientists have given some attention to the origins of post-war feminism, there has been little attention given by scholars to describing and explaining how individual women came to adopt a feminist analysis of the social world. This thesis is a sociological analysis of the lives of twelve feminist educators, born in New Zealand in the years immediately following World War Two. The method used in this is life-history analysis, which focusses on ‘biography, history and social structure.’ It is argued that these New Zealand women, who attended school in the post-war years, and who have, as adults, become both educators and feminists, experienced in their lives contradictions and a sense of ‘marginality’, which generated in them visions of both the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in the lives of women in general. During their schooling, they experienced contradictions between their upbringing to be professionally-autonomous ‘intellectuals’ and the expectations of them as women to be subordinately ‘feminine.’ They also experienced contradictory expectations with respect to their sexual morality: while the dominant ideology of family and school emphasised pre-marital virginity, the permissive anarchy of the ‘sexual revolution’ stressed freedom of sexual expression. These women believed that education could provide a vision of the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in those of their students. As feminist educators within institutions, these women experienced a ‘double marginality’: as women, they were marginal in attaining senior positions within professional hierarchies and as feminists they were members of a small and dissenting minority.

text: Feminism and education in post-war New Zealand: a sociological analysis For the purposes of this thesis, feminism has been viewed as both a set of social theories which identify, describe and account for the contradictions experienced by women in their everyday lives and the social movement which has developed and employed these theories to assist in generating political strategies aimed at redressing social inequalities and injustices recognised as based, wholly or in part, on gender. Since the late 1960s, many New Zealand educators have been influenced by feminism. Although feminist social scientists have given some attention to the origins of post-war feminism, there has been little attention given by scholars to describing and explaining how individual women came to adopt a feminist analysis of the social world. This thesis is a sociological analysis of the lives of twelve feminist educators, born in New Zealand in the years immediately following World War Two. The method used in this is life-history analysis, which focusses on ‘biography, history and social structure.’ It is argued that these New Zealand women, who attended school in the post-war years, and who have, as adults, become both educators and feminists, experienced in their lives contradictions and a sense of ‘marginality’, which generated in them visions of both the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in the lives of women in general. During their schooling, they experienced contradictions between their upbringing to be professionally-autonomous ‘intellectuals’ and the expectations of them as women to be subordinately ‘feminine.’ They also experienced contradictory expectations with respect to their sexual morality: while the dominant ideology of family and school emphasised pre-marital virginity, the permissive anarchy of the ‘sexual revolution’ stressed freedom of sexual expression. These women believed that education could provide a vision of the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in those of their students. As feminist educators within institutions, these women experienced a ‘double marginality’: as women, they were marginal in attaining senior positions within professional hierarchies and as feminists they were members of a small and dissenting minority.

year: 1985

title: Introduction: Recognition, redistribution and reconciliation in postcolonial settler societies

authors: van Meijl, Toon

subjects: multiculturalism

abstract: Various questions are addressed regarding recognition of special rights for indigenous minorities in postcolonial nation-states, redistributing resources to redress longstanding indigenous grievances about the history of colonial dispossession and strategy of reconciliation between the immigrant majority of settlers and their descendants against a backdrop of multiculturalism.

text: Introduction: Recognition, redistribution and reconciliation in postcolonial settler societies Various questions are addressed regarding recognition of special rights for indigenous minorities in postcolonial nation-states, redistributing resources to redress longstanding indigenous grievances about the history of colonial dispossession and strategy of reconciliation between the immigrant majority of settlers and their descendants against a backdrop of multiculturalism.

year: 2003-09-01