Musical Composition
An accomplished pianist and former keen trumpet player, Ivan Bootham began composing in his early teens. His music teachers included Maxwell Fernie and Loretto Cunninghame.
His best-known work to date is the opera The Death of Venus, based on his radio play of that name, which premiered in Wellington in 2002. The story is based on an historical incident in 1806, in which the brig Venus was seized at Port Dalrymple (Tasmania) by its first mate Kelly, aided by convicts, and sailed to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. Two of the female convicts on board are believed to have been the first white women to live in New Zealand.
In 2002, Bootham completed his second opera Pictures, based on the short story of that name by New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield.
His most recent major compositions are the mass Missa Creator Spiritus (2006) and the monodrama Bessie Blue (2009).
Among his compositions are: Three Musics (1965) for French horn, strings and harp; Sonata Movement (1969) for piano; Winter Garden (1988) for wind quintet; A String of Clichés (1996) for French horn and piano; Zuweilen (2000), six short pieces for piano; Three Lejjoon Poems (2000), a short song cycle to poems by Niel Wright; Little Blue Peep (2002) for harmonica and piano; A Wild Garden of Doggerel (2003), settings of nonsense poems by the composer for unaccompanied choir; Play On A Debussy Motif (2004) for piano; Spinning Jenny (2005) for piano duet, and a song cycle For One Who Went Away (2004), a setting of seven poems by Peter Jacobson.
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