One of the questions of new music is: what and how much do composers owe their audiences? It's something Nathaniel Otley, a composer of exciting but unapologetically experimental music, has been dealing with lately.
"Composers," he says, finally, "have a responsibility to be aware of who they are, but you also need to be true to yourself."
It's worked for him so far. In 2019, he claimed both the NZSO Todd Corporation Young Composer Award and the University of Otago Lilburn Trust Composition Competition, and last year featured at the prestigious Voix Nouvelles Academy in France.
He is currently the NZSO National Youth Orchestra composer-in-residence, and the group plays his new work, The Convergence of Oceans, in Wellington and Auckland at the end of the month.
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