Secondary Students’ Choir celebrates thirtieth anniversary: stylistic and period adaptability, sheer quality
As I said two years ago “I reviewed the choir almost exactly two years ago; now they are here for another school holiday course. My enthusiasm for their performance has not diminished, nor has the choir’s skill and versatility”. This year is the 30th anniversary of the choir’s formation, and those of its alumni attending the weekend celebrations helped to boost audience numbers so that the cathedral was almost...NZSO and Madeleine Pierard with Ross Harris’s anguished Second Symphony to mark ANZAC Day
I have been heard to utter unpatriotic feelings about the seeming endless attention paid in New Zealand to war and in particular the First World War and Gallipoli, which took place around 100 years ago. I have no problem with the stimulus the centenary has given to serious re-examination of the political background to the war, its pursuit and the catastrophic results of the Treaty of Versailles that sought...Student guitar talents offer entertaining replacement concert at St Andrew’s
This programme was a last-minute replacement for the scheduled performance by guitarist Owen Moriarty who will now play on 11 May. These students were to have played on that day. There was another alteration, with the first player, Royden Smith, replaced by Jake Church who played a pot-pourri of tunes from La Traviata arranged by Julian Arcas. It made an engaging start to the concert. Emma Sanders chose what might be...New Zealand String Quartet, minus 2nd violin, avoids any string quartets in different combinations with pianist Jian Liu
This time, there was a different disposition of the quartet and the audience in the room; the players had their backs to one of the sections of raised seating and the audience sat either in the other section or at floor level, the latter with their backs to the raised seating, rather than being between the two upper levels. The musicians usually have their backs to the large memorial...David Guerin celebrates the new Hutt Little Theatre piano with the Goldberg Variations
This special, extra concert was presented to mark the unveiling of a plaque recording the names of donors to the Little Theatre Piano Fund. It would have been hard to think of a more monumental piece of music for the occasion than the Goldberg Variations. The last time I heard David Guerin playing was in an ensemble of four at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson last February. Alone...Full house for Edo de Waart and the NZSO in magnificent Eroica and an epic Double Concerto by Brahms
In a review of the NZSO just over a year ago, I said “You can’t beat Beethoven on a good day – and this was a very good day”. That was one hundred percent true of this concert, with new Music Director Edo de Waart. I thought it was brilliant planning to get an audience in to hear a programme that was at least in part familiar. They would...After fifty-seven years of public neglect – Farquhar’s First Symphony from the NZSM and Ken Young
At last! - the drought has been broken! - the well has been newly dug! - and the field has been freshly ploughed! So, just what, you're bemusedly thinking, am I on about this time round? I'll tell you! - David Farquhar's First Symphony, performed only once previously in concert in 1959, has finally received its SECOND public performance! - that makes, by my reckoning, fifty-seven years of... read more