She's got It In The bag

Composer marks her return home with the debut of new works in suffrage-themed performances.

- Elizabeth Kerr

When contemporary music ensemble Stroma presents its suffrage-themed Vox Fem concert in Wellington this month and Essential Experimental a month later, both programmes will include world premieres from New Zealand composer Antonia Barnett-McIntosh.

She recently returned to New Zealand after a 12-year absence to be composer-in-residence at the New Zealand School of Music. She’s living for a year in the Lilburn Residence in Thorndon. When the Listener visits, she’s baking. “Baking and composing – it’s all one,” she says. She wants the house of the late composer Douglas Lilburn to be a “social and welcoming place”.

“I’m not the kind of person who says, ‘This is my residency and my house and I’m going to write my music here’. I want it to be an open house; I plan to curate lots of concerts, talks, film nights – and dinners and parties.”

Working with others and crossing discipline boundaries fuel Barnett- McIntosh’s creativity. It’s something that led her to be part of London-based Hubbub, where, for two years, she was composer-in-residence to a team of scientists, humanists, artists, public health experts, broadcasters and others exploring the dynamics of rest.

Collaborating with a graphic artist, she created