11 Facts About Jenny McLeod

Jennifer Helen McLeod was a New Zealand composer and professor of music at Victoria University of Wellington.

Jenny McLeod composed several major works for big groups including Under the Sun for four orchestras and 450 children, and the opera Hohepa.

Jenny McLeod was musical as a child and could read music at age five.

In 1961, Jenny McLeod began studying music at Victoria University of Wellington, where her teachers included Frederick Page, David Farquhar and Douglas Lilburn, and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1964.

Jenny McLeod was appointed at a young age to Professor in 1971, a position she held until 1976.

Jenny McLeod is best known for two major works, Earth and Sky and Under the Sun for large forces.

Jenny McLeod was a great admirer of, and was greatly influenced by, the music of Messiaen.

Jenny McLeod expanded this technique to encompass all 223 possible set-classes, and developed a coherent labelling, categorisation and analytical approach to the universe of chromatic possibilities.

Each has its own conductor, coordinated by listening through headphones to a tape of Jenny McLeod herself counting beats and bars.

Several of Jenny McLeod's songs were written for 1,000 children and the Bach Choir, which was performed at the Sun Festival in Oriental Bay, Wellington Harbour in December 1983 as part of Summer City.

Jenny McLeod wrote many hymns in Maori for the annual choral competitions Katorika Hui Aranga held in the Whanganui region at Easter.