Musings and a review by Peter Coates. This week has been a very exciting one for me. Last Sunday I saw a performance of Wushu martial arts by twenty-four Chinese visiting experts. This was spectacular, colourful and beautifully choreographed and performed in front of an appeciative audience at the Wellington Town Hall. Modern dance choreographers in Wellington should have been along to witness it. This was followed by another Chinese delight on Thursday. In this case it was an illustrated lecture by visiting sculptor Prof. Zhao from Shanghai. Prof. Zhao was visiting Wellington for a week, working with Richard Taylor, of Weta...  Read More »

The concert during the Festival by the New Zealand String Quartet entitled TEN (music composed in 1810, 1910 and 2010) prompts us (rather given to dates and things) to look at all the other anniversaries this year. Of course it’s the 200th birthday of Chopin and Schumann. But did you know about the other major composers born in 1810? Otto Nicolai, composer of Die lustige Weibe von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor); he was born, like Kant and ETA Hoffmann, in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad); Ferdinand David – dedicatee of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, composer and concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra;...  Read More »