Including Heart Attack Alley and Pat Deavoll

SATURDAY OCTOBER 15

Saturday Morning with Kim Hill (Radio New Zealand National, 8.10am). This morning Hill talks to top Kiwi female mountaineer and rock climber Pat Deavoll, whose out-there achievements include climbing all New Zealand’s 3000m peaks and conquering some of the most difficult multi-pitch climbs in Australia. Her book, Wind from a Distant Summit: the Story of New Zealand’s Top Woman Mountaineer, comes out on Monday. Then award-winning poet Kate Camp beams in live from the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is just down the road (relatively speaking) from Berlin, where she recently began the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer’s Residency.

Pat Deavoll

Heart Attack Alley and Ruby Frost Recorded Live at Roundhead Studios (95bFM, 11.00am and Friday, 2.00pm). Heart Attack Alley are an increasingly important part of the incestuous Auckland music scene: the blues trio features ex-Supergroover Karl Steven on harmonica and singer Caoimhe Macfehin, who are both in the Drab Doo Riffs, plus guitarist Kristal G. This combo evolved from jam sessions on Kristal’s front steps. They graduated to supporting Wanda Jackson when she toured here last year and then released a 7-inch recording in April. It’s called The Way to a Man’s Heart Is Through His Chest. Watch out, Karl. Next up it’s singer-songwriter Ruby Frost, born Jane de Jong, who grew up around the Christian music scene and the Parachute Music Festival, run by her parents, Mark and Chris de Jong. She branched out: as a music reporter for TV2’s The Erin Simpson Show and then into oddball pop, which led to her winning the MTV 42 Unheard music competition here in 2009 and then the pop category of the prestigious John Lennon Songwriting Contest last year. There will be live streaming and podcasts on 95bfm.com and video on the Listener website. (The first part of this concert will be repeated on Radio New Zealand National, 4.10pm and Friday, 8.06pm.)

Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Tonight, direct from the Michael Fowler Centre, it’s the fourth and final concert in the Brahmissimo! series, with the NZSO, conducted by Pietari Inkinen. Soloists Russian violinist Mikhail Ovrutsky and English cellist Andrew Joyce will play Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, his Symphony No 4 and his Double Concerto.

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Composer of the Week (Radio New Zealand Concert, 9.00am today and weekdays, and 7.00pm Monday). This week, RNZ Concert focuses on Peteris Vasks (b1946), one of the most influential European contemporary composers working today. Born in Aizpute, Latvia, he learnt the violin at the Latvian Academy of Music, but had to go to neighbouring Lithuania to complete his musical education, studying composition and learning the double bass. This was because his father was a Baptist minister and at that time – the 1960s – Latvia was still part of the Soviet Union, which imposed repressive policies against certain religious groups. Vasks returned home and played in a number of orchestras before taking up a career as a teacher of composition in various Latvian institutions, which he continues to do. He also maintains an important presence as a composer, both at home and as a composer-in-residence in different parts of the world. He started to become known outside his homeland in the 1990s, particularly after Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer became a fan of his work. Vasks is best known for his choral music and his string, brass and piano works. He is a committed environmentalist and nature themes can be found in many of his pieces, as well as a keen sense of nationalism and echoes of his spiritual beliefs. He has said, “There has been so much bloodshed and destruction, and yet love’s power and idealism have helped to keep the world in balance.” Vasks has received a number of musical awards over the years and has been an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences since 1994 and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music since 2001. He has also written several pieces for the famed US-based Kronos Quartet.

Opera on Sunday (Radio New Zealand Concert, 3.00pm). Telling their stories through song is what Australian Aborigines have been doing for 60,000 years and so it wasn’t such a big step for Deborah Cheetham – a member of the “stolen generation” – to compose an opera about her people. Today’s work is the world premiere of Pecan Summer, the true story of the 1939 Cummeragunja Mission walk-off, and the first opera written by an indigenous Australian and using an indigenous cast. More than 200 men, women and children left the mission in New South Wales, crossed the Murray River and camped out to protest at their treatment by the station’s manager. The work stars Cheetham as Ella and features the Dhungala Children’s Choir, the Short Black Opera Company and the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, conducted by David Kram.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 20

Appointment (Radio New Zealand Concert, 7.00pm). Tonight, Christine Argyle talks to Czech conductor Oliver von Dohnányi, who was in New Zealand recently to conduct the NBR New Zealand Opera’s production of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. Although distantly related, he is a member of one of Eastern Europe’s most distinguished musical dynasties, which includes Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor Ernst von Dohnányi and his conductor grandson Christoph.

Amped (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Classical, jazz and rock worlds collide in tonight’s concert, recorded live in the Auckland Town Hall. The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich, shares the stage with saxophonist Nathan Haines, playing Omnifenix, the first of two works by John Psathas. Then it’s Pounamu, a piece Psathas wrote with Little Bushman frontman Warren Maxwell, who also performs tonight, along with the Dream Band and David Jones on drums. “I thought it would be incredible to try and create something with Warren that wasn’t just a concerto idea, but like a huge song as well,” said Psathas about the piece. Other works by Haines, Pat Metheny and C Fischer fill out the programme.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 21

Classic Concert (Radio New Zealand National, 11.06pm). They don’t come much more classic than Clapton and Winwood, in this case Live from Madison Square Garden, from 2008. As well as playing stuff from their solo days and with groups such as Cream, Derek and the Dominos and Traffic, Eric and Steve go back in time to when they were bandmates in Blind Faith. There’ll be rampant nostalgia – and wicked guitar playing – all over the place.