Musical recognition of ANZAC Day (apart from ritualised hymns) has not been a common thing, as far as I can remember. And looking back over the record of reviews in Middle C, I can find no significant concerts, at least since 2008, that attempted to mark the day. The last with any sort of connection was a small chamber music concert that accompanied an exhibition of Gallipoli paintings by artist... read more

The music of theUnited States, in the common perception, is so dominated by jazz, spirituals and various other kinds of popular music, that I have to confess to a degree of surprise to encounter music that might have been written in Europe. And that, in spite of my perfectly decent familiarity with a lot of the classical music of theUnited States.  The first two pieces were for flute and piano... read more

Each of the seven concerts in which Michael Houstoun plays all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas is high-lighted by one of the famous ‘name’ sonatas.  It is a device with far more value than mere marketability. The order of the sonatas Many in the audience will have wondered whether Houstoun had a theme or some sort of musical pattern in mind in his choice of what to put in each programme: whether... read more

The third in the Waikanae Music Society’s 2013 series of nine concerts presented an international pianist in one of what was apparently very few New Zealand recitals. The audience was of around average size for Waikanae, perhaps 350. Book 2 of Debussy’s preludes contains music that is less familiar than Book I. The reasons are plain enough: fewer pieces of distinctive character, more ‘impressionist’ or scene-painting pieces whose strengths emerge, for... read more

This was the first of a new series of six concerts at lunchtime Thursdays devoted to Bach. Unusually, the series puts together a number of organ works, not all very well known, alongside all six of Bach’s cello suites. It looks like a joint initiative of the church’s musical director, Robert Oliver and Douglas Mews; at this first concert the audience was big enough to reassure the church that it... read more

Introduction The Nelson International Chamber Music Festival has become by far the largest classical music festival in the country, increasing the trend well established in Europe and North America, to build music festivals into summer holiday plans. While the festival’s duration has been reduced from the previously normal length of some 17 days to ten, with more concerts each day, in all other respects it is bigger. It was an enlargement in... read more

This concert celebrated the nineteenth annual opera school held at Whanganui, in the music rooms of Wanganui Collegiate School during the preceding ten days. The idea of a training school for promising singers was driven by certain Auckland-based opera figures, most importantly Donald Trott. He has been deeply involved in opera both as a singer and administrator from the days of Perkel Opera and the several opera company metamorphoses, through... read more

There was a very near full house at the Michael Fowler Centre for this, now rather rare occasion. In earlier years the NZSO and the Orpheus Choir joined for the annual December performances every year or so, but for a while the tradition was broken. For many years it became common for the Orpheus Choir to take turns with other Wellington choirs to sing the oratorio.

This resumed relationship might... read more

Last year’s festival for cellists at the New Zealand School of Music was a very popular occasion, and it encouraged Inbal Megiddo, cello lecturer at the school,  and other leading cellists, to stage a repeat. It involves cello tuition, masterclasses and ensemble performance and a cello scholarship, consisting of $1000 plus the use of a Thomas Kennedy cello (c. 1813) for a year. Professor Shmuel Magan of the Jerusalem Academy... read more

These two pianists, born in Taiwan, gained their master’s degrees at Victoria University, and have studied elsewhere. They have returned to Wellington with a host of awards and prizes in their brief-cases.  They have both become highly polished players who have recently joined forces to play piano duets, and duos, no doubt, which they do with a unanimity of feeling and technical mastery that is not usually acquired in... read more