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Composer and arts laureate Ross Harris and NZ poet laureate Vincent O’Sullivan have collaborated on works for more than 15 years. Renee Liang interviews Ross about their latest work, Brass Poppies, a chamber opera reframing World War I in terms of its effect on New Zealanders at home. The work will have its joint world premiere in March at the NZ Festival in Wellington and the Auckland Arts Festival.

Why do you write music?

I was never much good at anything else.

Tell me about your longstanding collaboration with Vincent O'Sullivan.

Vincent and I started our collaboration in 2002 when we agreed to work on an opera. We have completed 11 major works together including symphonies, operas, song cycles and the work Requiem for the Fallen which featured in the Wellington NZ Festival 2012.

How do the two of you approach a new work?

Casual conversation, news items etc. We have similar interests in books, TV and sport.

How do you work through creative roadblocks?

The only time I feel that I might becoming subject to a creative block is when I am between pieces. Once I get started on a project the ideas just keep coming.

How do you approach a piece of text - what is the process involved in turning it into a piece of music, and how closely do you work with the writer?

I approach the setting of Vincent’s words by a process of thinking of the shape of musical lines that will be close to the rhythm of the words when spoken. I occasionally push the words beyond that with melismatic word setting but not very often. I pay very careful attention the vowels that come up. I sometimes even use the contour of vowel resonance to delineate the melodic shape. When we agree on an idea that we might like to work on Vincent usually writes material that I will react to. This involves cutting some parts or adding different material. There is a continuous dialogue in this way until the piece starts to become finalised.

I find it interesting that now, as we approach the centenaries of the World Wars, we are moving away from the details of battle and more towards its effects on society. Is this just a function of our society in NZ do you think, or more universal?

I suppose we know so much about the details of Gallipoli now that it seems important (especially after 100 years) that we now focus on the impact on all parts of society, families etc. The opera Brass Poppies certainly does this.

Once you have written a work, how involved are you in its rehearsal and staging?

Not at all. When I compose I imagine all sorts of scenarios in order to create music that is suited to a dramatic context but I welcome the creativity of a director who is vastly more experienced than me to interpret the work.

What are you working on next?

A clarinet concerto - details not yet decided.

What’s your big idea for 2016?

My personal big idea is really small. To keep writing music because, as I said in answer to the first question, it is about the only thing I can usefully do.

•  Brass Poppies is on March 3 and 6 at Shed 6 in Wellington at the New Zealand Festival 2016, and at Mercury Theatre in Auckland on March 11-12 at the Auckland Arts Festival 2016.

Brass Poppies is an Auckland Arts Festival, New Zealand Festival and New Zealand Opera co-production with support from Lottery Grants Board, Te Papa, Foundation North, WW100 Fund and Creative New Zealand.