This third concert in the 2019 series, Karori Classics was a benefit concert for Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand, for it’s a wretched condition that afflicts the child of two of the players, Emma Brewerton and Lyndsay Mountfort. We were sorry to have missed the earlier two concerts; the first, on 1 March, by duet pianists Beth Chen and Nicole Chao, known as Duo Enharmonics; and the second on 22 March... read more

Stroma is a mixed chamber music ensemble drawn from musicians of the NZSO. It performs contemporary experimental music. This programme included music by New Zealand, American, Irish, French, and Icelandic composers, but in particular, it honoured the 80th birthday of John Rimmer, one of New Zealand's most iconic composers. The programme started with fog horns, recorded in San Francisco Bay. A brass sextet of two horns, two trombones and two... read more

Though Middle C has been catching the weekly lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s pretty regularly, we have sometimes been a bit neglectful in writing about them. This one was harder to duck. Student recitals almost always reveal a player or two of considerable distinction, in addition to which we have the experience of watching live performers playing music, a phenomenon that is becoming ever more rare, as disembodied versions of... read more

What a surprise to discover that Rossini’s youthful Sonate a Quattro No.1 in F Major was here masquerading as a wind quartet! – in fact, I was going to add, “in true Rossinian fashion” before I discovered that the arranger was one Frederic Berr, a clarinettist who similarly refurbished for wind quartet no less than five of Rossini’s youthful “String Sonatas” , and provided a sixth from an “Andante... read more

Listening to string quartet music is a delightful way of spending a Sunday afternoon. We have had the privilege of hearing three excellent string quartets over the last three weeks, the New Zealand String Quartet, the Aroha Quartet, and now the Kiwa Quartet.  It is fortunate for Wellington to have such an abundance of talent around. The Kiwa Quartet was formed in 2015 as part of a project supported by... read more

This promised to be a major concert, and as soon as the first arresting sounds of the Jupiter Symphony filled the MFC, I felt assured that it was probably the most important concert of Orchestra Wellington’s year. And so I scanned the spaces above the orchestra to assure myself that it was being recorded; and I was dismayed to see no sign of RNZ Concert’s microphones. In the light of... read more

This was a benefit concert to help raise funds for refurbishing the Church’s pipe organ. Bach himself wasn’t known as a violinist to the same extent as he was a keyboard player, yet according to his son, Carl Philippe Emanuel, “he played the violin cleanly and powerfully”, and his familiarity with the instrument is evident in the way he wrote his six Violin Sonatas and Partitas (BWV 1001-1006), so they... read more

Though having just tut-tutted elsewhere over the NZSO’s somewhat loose “title” attached to its most recent concert, I’m much less inclined towards adverse comment regarding the NZSM Orchestra’s publicity legend  for ITS latest presentation, “Darkness and Light”.  It’s a reasonably apposite description of the moods of what was being played at the evening’s concert, conveying something of the music’s range and impact as was performed, here brilliantly and most... read more

Concerts featuring Michael Houstoun, alone, or with others, have usually attracted big audiences at Waikanae. This Sunday afternoon concert, which attracted, I’d guess, around 400, couldn’t have been accommodated in any of the usual chamber music venues in Wellington other than the too-large Michael Fowler Centre or perhaps St Mary of the Angels. The advertised line-up for this concert had included Andrew Thomson on the viola; he was replaced... read more

This concert had no challenging contemporary works, no surprises. It was romantic music, all within the bounds of the traditional, standard symphonic repertoire, but it was all beautiful music. The programme spanned 127 years of musical development from Beethoven's Coriolan Overture of 1807 to Sibelius's Seventh Symphony of 1924. Over that period the world changed and this was reflected in the music. The individual responsibility, accountability, sensibility and the... read more