Experimental cinema reimagined with contemporary sounds.

As part of the 2025 midwinter Lōemis Festival, Anemic Cinema conjures up the surrealist spirit of early avant-garde film by matching experimental films with contemporary live scores played with panache by Stroma. Highlights include two world premieres: Len Lye’s primordial Tusalava with newly imagined score by Andrew Faleatua featuring Pacific drums, and David Long’s dazzling take on David Downes’s hypnotic animation Fish, Moon. In addition, composers Olga Neuwirth, Iris ter Schiphorst, Yannis Kyriakides and Feona Lee Jones breathe new life into well-known classics of early experimental cinema by Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Marc Allégret, Maya Deren and Viking Eggeling. This concert sees sound and image collide in ecstatic abstraction — come join us at the Roxy for a night to remember.

PROGRAMME

Andrew Faleatua: Tusalava (premiere) — film by Len Lye

David Long: Fish, Moon (premiere) — film by David Downes

Yannis Kyriakides: Anémic Cinéma — film by Marcel Duchamp/Man Ray/Marc Allégret

Feona Lee Jones: String Quartet No. 2 “Adrenaline” — film by Maya Deren

Iris ter Schiphorst: Un Chien Andalou — film by Luis Buñuel/Salvador Dalí

Olga Neuwirth: Symphonie Diagonale — film by Viking Eggeling

Kaua e mate wheke, mate ururoa | Don’t die like an octopus, die like a hammerhead shark.

A true story of the heroism and humiliation of Captain Roger Dansey, a Māori soldier on the frontline of a European war, Mate Ururoa is an urgent new chamber opera from legendary New Zealand composer Dame Gillian Whitehead (Ngai Te Rangi, Tuhoe). With the originally planned 2021 premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall cancelled due to the pandemic, Wellington Opera is proud to present the world premiere of this important new work by one of Aotearoa’s greatest living artists here in Pōneke. Performed in English and te reo Māori by Māori-American baritone David Tahere alongside acclaimed taonga pūoro practitioner and mezzo Ariana Tikao, with director Sara Brodie.

Celebrating 25 years of exploring new musical worlds.

Heaven & Earth marks 25 years of Stroma’s fearless exploration of sound and spirit since our inaugural concert Wind, Rain & Light in August 2000. We recall the theme of that first concert by similarly evoking musical impressions of the earth below and the sky above. Featuring a world premiere by New York-based NZ composer Leila Adu-Gilmore, the programme includes Olivier Messiaen’s ecstatic Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus, Gemma Peacocke’s Sky Fields, John Rimmer’s Where Sea Meets Sky 2, Michael Norris’s new piano trio The Spaces In Between, and—to mark the recent passing of Sofia Gubaidulina—her meditative Garden of Joy and Sorrow. Come join us in celebrating a quarter century of intrepid sonic exploration from the musicians of Stroma.

PROGRAMME

Olivier Messiaen: Louange a l’immortalité de Jésus

Gemma Peacocke: Sky Fields

John Rimmer: Where Sea Meets Sky 2

Leila Adu-Gilmore: Commissioned work (premiere)

Sofia Gubaidulina: Garden of Joy and Sorrow

Michael Norris: The Spaces In Between