Guildhall | Opera Makers

Kia ora!

My name is Luka Venter. I'm a composer and conductor from Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington.

I've recently been offered one of only three places on the Guildhall School of Music and Drama's prestigious MA in Opera Making. During which I'll be studying composition under some of the leading practitioners on the world stage, as well as composing a new opera which gets a fully-staged performance at London's Milton Court.

I’m extremely happy to have been awarded both a part-scholarship from the Guildhall as well as the 2022 Edwin Carr Foundation Scholarship, which have gone a long way to covering much of my tuition fees.

However, I still need to raise a whopping $38,000 to cover the remainder of my tuition fees, and my living costs for the year of my studies here in London, which is why I'm asking my crowd for support. 

About the programme. 

Starting in September 2022, the MA in Opera Making is a completely unique programme offered by the Guildhall School in which three composers are admitted, alongside three writers. After an initial period, this group divides into 3 pairs of composer-librettist teams, and work together closely across the year of the programme, building gradually towards the course’s culmination: a fully-staged performance of the new chamber opera at London’s Milton Court Theatre.

Across the programme I’ll be mentored by leading composers Julian Philips and Julian Anderson, as well as a litany of the world’s top-tier practitioners in opera and composition, ranging from the staff and singers of the Guildhall’s award-winning Opera department, to resident and visiting practitioners in contemporary opera at the Royal Opera House.

Looking Ahead.

Following my 2022-23 studies on the MA in Opera Making, I’ll be busy writing new works, and continuing to train and work as a conductor, but crucially I’ll also be applying for the London Symphony Orchestra’s Panufnik Young Composer Scheme, the London Philharmonic’s Young Composer Schemes, as well as bringing my musical practice back home to Aotearoa. My aim is to continue to represent the compositional arm of New Zealand opera on the world stage. 

These life-changing studies will get me to these places and beyond, but I can’t do it alone, and your support will enable me to take up my place on this course, and to continue my growth as a young composer-conductor.

Ngā mihi maioha ki a koutou,

Luka

––––––––––––––––––––––––

More about my music.

Initially trained as a singer, and now training extensively as a conductor, these two disciplines have over the years very much bled into my practice as a composer, which is saturated with an obsession with the physical act of performance. The human voice is the original instrument, and is literally the act of a singer's body funnelling and shaping air to vibrate their bodies and project sound across a distance to vibrate into our own bodies. How could you not fall in love with, or be struck by that.

As a composer, I'm obsessed with language and text as well, but also the sheer primal immediacy of the voice, coupled with its lustrous sound. Match these with the powerful, delicate, shimmering, explosive possibilities of colour and energy in the orchestra, and the potential result is intoxicating to even just imagine. I love writing music that feels like you’re feeling inexorably pulled forward. Music that is by turns luminous and visceral.

I love writing music that explores the intensely physical nature of performance, thinking closely about how the connection between hair and metal, the membrane and the mallet, the body of a singer and a current of air, all combine to produce sound that compels, and transixes us.  

I've twice been a finalist in the NZSO Todd Corporation Young Composer Award, and won the overall award in 2018 for my orchestral work Primeval Light, having previously also been a finalist in the Lilburn Trust NZSM Composer Competition. I've been commissioned, and had my music performed, workshopped, and recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, The Night Watch and countertenor Stephen Diaz, the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, the New Zealand String Quartet, and the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra.

Having built on those opportunities, I'm extremely proud and excited to make the most of this new step forwards at the Guildhall.

How did I get here?

I've been a feverish composer since my secondary school years at Onslow College, where I wrote a number of works with grand ambitions - think lots of works featuring 7 solo cellos, masses of metallic percussion, dense, juicy choral works in Old Icelandic and Ancient Greek!

The singular thread in my life, however, has always been human language, and human voices. My obsession with the human voice traces all the way back to my youth, and I've now been singing (either solo or in ensembles) since I was 7! My passion for both singing and composition led me to Te Kōkī, the New Zealand School of Music, where I ended up studying voice, and composition with Michael Norris. By happy surprise, I found my voice as a performer when I discovered conducting along the way and ended up studying with my teacher Hamish McKeich.

Across my life as a singer, I've worked with New Zealand Opera, Days Bay Opera, Orchestra Wellington, and have also been engaged by the Auckland Arts Festival to help develop new contemporary opera, as well as being an alumnus of two of the three national choirs: the New Zealand Youth Choir and the NZ Secondary Students Choir. You've probably also heard me sing with the Orpheus Choir, Tudor Consort, on a few recordings and a few recitals across Pōneke as well!

Principally I compose and conduct these days and pour my love of the voice into what I do in both. During the last two years I've been keeping busy training in the NZSO Fellowship Programme as one of its four conductors, during which I worked closely with Hamish McKeich and other visiting conductors and assisted Holly Mathieson on a luminous programme including the music of Takemitsu and Dorothy Ker, as well as Gemma New on the première of Ihlara McIndoe’s Ephemeral Bounds and Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony.

I was also Orchestra Wellington's Assistant Conductor for two years, during which I had the incredibly opportunity to conduct two world-premieres - one alongside Music Director, Marc Taddei himself! While in my role at OW I also took my first steps into opera conducting last year when I assisted on Wellington Opera's Don Giovanni.

I've also been doing my best despite the pandemic to keep my training moving forward and so have done much online - studying on the Curtis Institute's Mentor Network with Sarah Ioannides, studying analysis for contemporary music with contemporary music legend Robert Hasegawa, and more conducting under legendary conductor Neeme Järvi.

Most recently I took part in the European Conducting Masterclass with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducting Bartok and Bruckner!

Every conducting experience informs my understanding of structure, balance, the development of material, orchestral colours, expression, the whole gamut, and every time I return to composing after having conducted, I come to my craft with a refreshed sense of clarity and technique. 

I'm extremely happy to have the chance to take my training in both disciplines to the highest levels across my composition studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. With your support I can take up this opportunity and begin to lay the groundwork for an exciting career as a composer-conductor that will take me from Aotearoa to the world, and back again.

Thank you for your support.

––––––––––––––––––––––––