Taking Off - A Celebration of Brian Turner

Poet, environmentalist, sportsman, journalist, biographer and playwright Brian Turner ONZM died on the 5th of February 2025 at the age of 80. In 2021, Atoll Records released Voices of Men, an album of NZ composer Janet Jennings' music; it includes the song cycle ‘Taking Off’, based on a poem of the same name by Turner. In this session, Turner's partner Jillian Sullivan, an accomplished writer, poet and environmentalist, shares some of the diverse aspects of Brian's full and celebrated life.  

We also explore with composer Janet Jennings her reasons for choosing to set ‘Taking Off' to music, and her process to create a sound world that celebrates the chosen text. The session finishes with a performance of ‘Taking Off’ with Robert Tucker, recently described as “NZ's hardest working baritone”, and Auckland-based international pianist David Kelly.

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