Among other things in the Coming Events section of our Middle-C website is the complete schedule of music in the New Zealand International Arts Festival.
Just as important is the music that will be heard in the St Andrew’s Concert Season, in the second and third weeks of the festival. All 20 concerts are in the schedule, in chronological order.
This series is a response to the small amount of music in the festival proper; arranged by Wellington-based tenor Richard Greager and the organizer of the weekly Wednesday lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s, Marjan van Waardenberg. It offers a great platform – 20 concerts from Wellington’s most talented musicians, in a wide variety of genres from the traditional string and piano quartets, jazz and tango groups, a Renaissance music ensemble, two octets, leading singers, with pianist Terence Dennis, doing Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs, and the clarinet quintets of both Mozart and Brahms – two of the most marvellous pieces in all music, in one recital – and lots else.
It’s a brave venture, without the benefits of sponsorship or official backing, apart from a little help from a fund that remained from the similarly-independent series that were presented during the 2000 and 2002 festivals (Lindis Taylor was one of the promoters of those two series).
It’s important that the series is well supported.
Make sure you get to as many of them as you possibly can.