In 1997 I visited Cairo to work with Arabic musicians and a dawn trip to the pyramids was on the schedule. Then there was a visit to a local tourist shop and I came away with my own relic - a plaster copy of a golden Isis with wings outstretched. The seller did warn me that it was not the real artifact. It has sat in my studio and in idle moments I have pondered the fact that this goddess was worshipped as far back as 2500 b.c. and later her worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world until the 6th century. Temples to Isis were built in Iraq, Greece, Rome, even as far north as England where the remains of a temple were discovered at Hadrian's Wall.
"Relic” opens with a call from the harp and drum and through the melodic and darker passages I seek to convey a sense of ritual - each element in its place, taking time to breathe, delivering then moving on. The fast second section exploded into this piece quite spontaneously as the potential of the harp and drum combination demanded to be realized. Unison and ornate figures dominate the melodic material and an urgent dance in the Locrian mode is the result.

Relic was commissioned by STROMA with funding from Creative New Zealand

"Scholes’ relatively tonal style evoked a certain exotic element in his work’s colourings and an underlying suggestion of ancient ritual in its rhythmic character. The composer indicated in a programme note a certain fascination with Middle Eastern antiquity and its manifestations, stimulated by a visit to Egypt and the prospect of working with Arabic musicians, the harp-and-drum combination that opened the piece presiding over age-old processionals, then goading the ensemble into a lively primitive-sounding dance. Interestingly, Scholes cites the Locrian mode as the dance’s melodic “key”, emulating twentieth-century composers as diverse as Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Sibelius and Britten in his use of this exotic-sounding sequence (a minor scale with the second and fifth notes lowered a semitone). I enjoyed the music’s concurrent states of mystery and clarity, judiciously worked by the composer." Peter Mechen Middle C

Here's the full review from Middle C

“Where do words go when the sound of them has died?”
(Keri Hulme). With onomatopoeic words we can linger on the actual sound of the word and then the imagination considers how the sound was produced. There is a bewildering array of sounds and instruments available to the composer who writes music for percussion. I am one of those annoying people who, upon seeing an interesting object, immediately wants to hear what sort of noise it makes. In choosing the instruments for the soloist in “Bonk” I wanted to have a unified sound world and so made a decision to restrict the instruments to those made of metal. The result would be a piece with industrial and machine-like characteristics but there is also an element of fantasy and sounds which could adorn the world of Oberon and Titania. The sounds of metal percussion are full of variety and range from pitched instruments such as the vibraphone, glockenspiel, gongs, brake drums and cowbell through to those which make unpitched noise such as the cymbals, tam tam, spring coil, mark tree and rainstick. The orchestra in “Bonk” serves to enhance the soloist by adding to the attack or resonance of the percussion instruments, thereby giving the process of composition much in common with sound design. The orchestral writing also utilises the sound spectrum from clearly pitched or melodic music through to clusters where the priority is noise rather than harmony. “Bonk” explores density of sound. The thin transparent music of the glockenspiel solo contrasts with densely layered structures. The rhythms in “Bonk” are built on the simple repeating idea of short-long-short-long. In jazz this is called “swing”. In “Bonk” different degrees of swing are explored by varying the ratio between the short and long duration and then these are layered against a common pulse. The strict notation creates an amalgam of independent tempos.
I would like to finish this note with two quotations. Firstly, the words of Quince in his prologue to the play within a play from Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare: “If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, but with good will. To show our simple skill, that is the true beginning of our end.”
And from the Monty Python team – “Ah, I see you have the machine that goes ping!”
Peter Scholes

Commissioned by New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for Bruce McKinnon

"The concert had opened with Peter Scholes’s Bonk: Concerto for Metal and Orchestra. which had masterly soloist Bruce McKinnon centre stage at front playing an imaginative array of percussion instruments. The piece was well structured and coherent, making a journey from the subtle tinkling beginning to a satisfying resounding conclusion." [Review by Garth Wilshere].

“I do not like world premieres. Or rather, I like listening to them very much, but forming and expressing an opinion on new music within minutes of a single hearing is in many respects absurd.
The best you can really wish for Peter Scholes's new piece, Bonk, is many, many more performances so that a whole body of opinions may gradually emerge.
Bonk is a concerto and the soloist is a percussionist, but, take note, this is a concerto not for percussion but for metal: lids and springs therefore, as well as more conventional chimes and cymbals. The kaleidoscope of sound was spectacular and the tantalising shifts of rhythm were very pleasing. Bruce McKinnon did a wonderful job of marshalling his ironmongery to produce a very satisfying, genuinely musical performance.”
[Review by Timothy Jones, Christchurch Press]

The word Requiem comes from the Latin requiés (rest). In choosing a text for my piece, I chose not to use the regular texts from the Roman Catholic Liturgy and decided to write my own. The piece is structured in a hybrid form combining both concerto elements with the multiple movement architecture and text setting of the Requiem. The violinist is the protagonist whose melodies, rhythms and wide ranging emotions counterpoint the voices whose music is always lyrical and simple. At the time of writing this music I was not conscious of any particular emotion or statement, instead the music evolved and took it's own path. A new section would begin with a simple idea or "cell" and then expand in all directions until complete. There are eight sections - seven with text and the penultimate movement (the longest in the piece and first composed) for violin and orchestra with no voices. Requiem Concerto is in memory of my first wife Katherine (Kippy) Harris who was a violinist with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and my son Eliot Scholes. Special thanks to Niki Caro, Meryl Main and Owen Hughes Commissioned with funding from Creative New Zealand and Jenny Gibbs Peter Scholes

Special thanks to Niki Caro, Meryl Main and Owen Hughes Commissioned with funding from Creative New Zealand and Jenny Gibbs.

"... a score which revealed that few of our composers can come up with as evocative a turn of phrase as can Scholes. The composer's own moving words, commemorating the loss of his wife and son, provided a very real anchor, beautifully rendered by the singers ... Requiem Concerto was a thought-provoking work”
[Review by William Dart NZ Herald]

Here's the NZ Herald preview of premiere performance.

This is the music only version of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Seven". The work exists also in the form of narrator with music. Its genesis was a collaboration with Pico Iyer on a work for performance by the Auckland Chamber Orchestra in the 2007 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

Pico and I communicated by email on the basic design, mood and theme of each section but did not hear or see each other's work until we began the rehearsal process.

There are seven movements.

Special thanks to Linda Olsson, Alan Mayo, Cath Mayo

"The concert ended with a world premiere of Thirteen Ways of Looking at Seven, an experimental collaboration between Pico Iyer and Peter Scholes. The work had been created by email with Iyer and Scholes meeting for the first time only four days before the performance. In form, it was like Landfall, with Iyer narrating his words exploring states of mind, twisting meanings and thoughts inside out. Scholes’s music matched well: it had many moods and avoided bold statements. The experiment was a success. ”
[Review by Rod Biss NZ Listener]

Here's the NZ Herald preview of premiere performance.

Pico and I communicated by email on the basic design, mood and theme of each section but did not hear or see each other's work until we began the rehearsal process.

There are seven movements interspersed with readings.

Special thanks to Linda Olsson, Alan Mayo, Cath Mayo

"The concert ended with a world premiere of Thirteen Ways of Looking at Seven, an experimental collaboration between Pico Iyer and Peter Scholes. The work had been created by email with Iyer and Scholes meeting for the first time only four days before the performance. In form, it was like Landfall, with Iyer narrating his words exploring states of mind, twisting meanings and thoughts inside out. Scholes’s music matched well: it had many moods and avoided bold statements. The experiment was a success. ”
[Review by Rod Biss NZ Listener]

Blue Rock was composed for the Auckland Chamber Orchestra who gave the first performance in 2006 conducted by the composer. The title is inspired by the phenomenon of blue ice. This is ice which has undergone compression to the exent that all the air has been removed.

Antikythera was composed for the 2006 Committee concert. Antikythera is an island between Greece and a larger island called Kythera. It is the site of a very significant archeological find in 1901. The object was a complex piece of clockwork machinery designed to calculate astronomical positions. It has been dated to 150-100 BC. The device is remarkable for the level of miniaturisation and com- plexity of its parts showing a craftsmanship comparable to that of 18th century clocks. The music seeks to convey the interaction between the components of the clockwork mechanism and the idea that this thing has laid dor- mant for 2000 years and has been carefully reconstructed.

Quid Pro Quo Clarice was composed for the Auckland Chamber Orchestra "Gone to the Beach" series in 2006.

Rakitu was commissioned by Alexa Still. The title is the name of an island off the east coast of Great Barrier Island, New Zealand.