CHORUS AND KEYS - Festival Singers and Wellington Organists DVORAK - Mass in D Major Works by PURCELL, SWEELINCK, MATHIAS, MENDELSSOHN and J.C.BACH Festival Singers (Rosemary Russell, director) Soloists: Clarissa Dunn (soprano) / Rosel Labone (m-soprano) John Beaglehole (tenor) / Kieran Raynor (baritone) Organists: Paul Rosoman, Jonathan Berkahn, Judy Dumbleton Church of St.John's in the City, Willis St., Wellington Saturday 12th September 2009 This was a concert devised by Wellington organists and the Festival Singers to present music which combined the sounds of voices and organ. Similar concerts with the same forces have been held in the past during the annual "Organ Week" festivals, but 2009 being the 50th Anniversary...  Read More »

The fourth in the Wellington Orchestra’s subscription series continued the orchestra’s theme of combining the symphony with dance and movement. An imaginative enterprise but it presents quite surprising aesthetic problems. The concert opened with an interesting dance piece by Astor Piazzolla, perhaps the only Argentine composer many classical music followers have heard of. His fame rests on taking tango music into the concert hall, taking its essence and subjecting tango rhythms and melodic motifs to classical techniques. The piece began with basses and cellos playing slow, sonorous, elegiac ideas, soon picked up by violas and violins in quasi-fugal fashion: it...  Read More »

Review by Anna McGregor Seats were scarce at St Andrews on the Terrace on Saturday afternoon as the Tudor Consort presented their programme of six motets attributed to J.S. Bach. Admired by generations of musicians, these works have been described as ‘a pinnacle of absolute vocal music’, and greatly influenced the choral music of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms. This was a rare opportunity to experience all six works in succession and provided the listener with a unique platform to compare the facets of each. Under the direction of Michael Stewart, the Tudor Consort produced a well-blended and clean sound, successfully negotiating highly...  Read More »