Alistair M Vant ~ Composer
When my heart whispers to me,
in answer I write music…
I Write Music
Where there is life, there is music… As a composer, my clearest expressions are inspired by nature and being human.
Classically trained in violin and piano, with an early dive into jazz and improvisation; composing for ensembles, bands and orchestras is a natural forte. The possibility of sounds never heard before fuels an enthusiasm for audio technology and sound design, the balance to my apparently classical style.
Composition Showreel
To get a quick feel for my compositional style you can watch the showreel.
The works featured in this showreel are:
The Aliveness of Spring | Memory of a Friend | Promenade | A Dream of Mt Moehau | Danza Assertiva | Nature Awakening
Featured work
Inception: Mar 2025 Completion: Jun 2025
Instrumentation: Orchestra
Recording: Digital rendition
Pikikirunga ~ Humanity Awakening
The piece was partially inspired by a magnificent ‘tribal drumming’ gathering held on Pikikirunga (Tākaka Hill). The powerful rhythmic centre would drift slightly in and out, creating a mind-bending listening experience amongst the fire, the mountain and the stars.
Originally titled “The End of The Half Life”, the piece was written at a crossroads in my life from the realization that a life spent doing what I love is a choice, not a circumstance. The music evokes universal themes of both personal and global humanity. In the four months of its writing; absorbing and integrating the gifts of the crystal mountain; I have journeyed through my own human experiences from joy and inspiration to self doubt, depressive feelings and anger, and somehow found these all coming to a powerful resolution in Goodness as the piece unfolded within me and on the page.
Amongst the craziness and apparent entropy I am asking the silent mountain:
is this what Humanity Awakening looks like?
Why I write music
For me, composing is about giving sound vibration to what is known in the deep spaces, the high places and the simple moments of life and being human. Music speaks without words, beyond the everyday.
When I’m composing, everything else drops away and I find a focus and innate enthusiasm from which the music just seems to arrive on the page. The creative decisions happen easily in a place beyond thought; it becomes a natural flow.
Quite simply, composing is my life’s work and while it has taken half a lifetime to realize that, now that I have, there’s nothing to do but write…
“heartfully written music can convey the inner worlds of subtle experience in a way that words only dream of”