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35 reviews
Monday 4 February, 10 am Perhaps the decision to celebrate the restoration of the organ in the Nelson School of Music took a slightly eccentric course, by programming some pieces by Mozart. For while Mozart is known to have enjoyed…
Friday 1 February 2019, 7:30 pm This was the first festival for five years that has been able to move back to the now magnificently enhanced Nelson School of Music (now called the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts). That, as well as the…
These reviews cover concerts from Tuesday 7 to Friday 10 February 2017 My visit this year to the Nelson Chamber Music Festival was shorter than in previous years, arriving late afternoon on the Tuesday and departing midday Saturday.
For the first time, at this festival, two trips out of Nelson were organised, primarily as part of the full festival pass package; on Tuesday it was St Arnaud on Lake Rotoiti; today, to Upper Moutere to visit Höglund’s glass studio, the…
It featured four prominent New Zealand pianists: David Guerin, Jian Liu, Stephen de Pledge and Sarah Watkins. ‘Dance’ was a rather approximate term as the first piece, Ravel’s Mother Goose , in the original piano duet form, was not…
Coverage of this year’s Adam Chamber Music Festival (the 13th) will be divided into three parts. This first part covers the concerts, ignoring the Gala Dinner on Thursday the 29th at which an ad hoc variety of music was played, from Friday…
Principal participants: New Zealand and Penderecki string quartets, Darryl Poulsen, Peter Nagy, Colin Carr, NZ Trio, Jenny Wollerman, Diedre Irons, Emma Sayers, Richard Nunns, Bridget Douglas, Hiroshi Ikematsu and other NZSO players
My review of the recital at Nelson at which Keith Lewis and Michael Houstoun performed Schubert’s Winterreise had overlooked what I felt at the time to be a major innovation: the use of surtitles. I have now inserted the following…
New Zealand String Quartet, Alexander Zemstov (viola) and Leonid Gorokhov (cello) of the Hermitage String Trio, Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass), James Campbell (clarinet), Edward Allen (horn), Robert Weeks (bassoon)
Adam Chamber Music Festival. Saturday Music at Nelson. Bob Bickerton with Kid’s Concert; Riseley plays Paganini Caprices
Boccherini: String Quintet in C; Rossini: Duo for cello and bass; Paganini: Introduction and Variations on ‘Nel cor piu non mi sento’ from La Molinara by Paisiello; Motoharu Kawashima: Paganigani (1999); Vivaldi: The Four Seasons ( Le…
Adam Chamber Music Festival. Fairytales: Schumann: Märchenerzählungen , Op 132; Brahms: Intermezzi, Op 117; Bruch: Eight Pieces, Op 83, Nos 5, 2, 6, 7.
Major concerts in the evening slot continued through the week. This one drew on the ?fortuitous? presence of both a top-rank pianist and clarinettist to give us Messiaen’s great Quartet.
Adam Chamber Music Festival: Kugeltov Klezmer Quartet ( NZSO players – Robin Perks (violin) and Malcolm Struthers (double bass); Tui Clark (clarinet) and Ross Harris (piano accordion)
Another highlight of the festival (there were almost daily) was the presence of Keith Lewis and Michael Houstoun to perform Schubert’s Winterreise . They performed to a not quite full auditorium; many, after hearing reports from friends…
Haydn: Piano Trio No 40 in F sharp minor, Hob. 15/26; C P E Bach: Fantasia and Rondo in C; Mozart: Piano Trio in B flat, K 502
Liszt: Ballade No 2 in B minor, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude , Schlaflos , Frage und Antwort , La lugubre Gondola , Tarantella ( Venezia e Napoli ), Sonata in B minor; encore – Transcription of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde…
This was really the first display of the visiting trio of Russian players in the festival, though they had been very conspicuous as individuals in most of the earlier concerts.
Violin Sonata No 1, BWV 1014; Christmas Oratorio , BWV 248/4: aria – ‘Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben’; Cantata No 41: aria – ‘Woferne Du den edlen Frieden’; Cello Suite No 5, BWV 1011; Organ Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 541; Four pieces…
Brahms: Clarinet Sonata in F minor, Op 120 No 1; Timothy Corlis: Raven and the First Man ; Allan Gilliland: Suite from the Sound – ‘Parry’s Ground’; David Baker: Dance (1989); Copland: At the River ; Srul Glick: The Klezmer’s Wedding (1996)
Nelson School of Music, Sunday 6 February 2011 The evening concert offered no further obeissance to the national day. Instead, it was given over to two rather contrasting parts, returning the the universal instead of the parochial. In the…
Waitangi Winds. ‘To be announced’ (Sketches towards imagining the musical encounter between Tasman and Maori at Golden Bay); Philip Brownlee: Te Hau o Tawhirimatea for flute; Ken Wilson: Wind Quintet; Lilburn: Wind quintet (1957); Harris:…
Friday 4 February 7.30pm For those who knew their music, this was a rare treat. Dvořák’s string sextet is a rich and gorgeous piece, one of those pieces that has familiar moments but is surprisingly neglected. Is it really too hard to get…
Adam Chamber Music Festival, Nelson, 3 to 12 February 2011. The Eleventh Adam Chamber Music Festival began with a gala dinner and concert at the Woollaston Winery out of Nelson with musical contributions from all the musicians present at…
Cynics often remark, a propos of the hoo-hah surrounding ‘world premieres’, that second performances, like second editions of novels, are much rarer than first ones. So the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson has already entered the…
Mendelssohn and More I: Music by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, and Schumann Prazhak Quartet, Piers Lane (piano), Rolf Gjelsten (cello), Jenny Wollerman (soprano)
Nelson School of Music, Saturday 31 January Piers Lane is a top international pianist and he should fill a house of reasonable size anywhere in the world. Here he did not play solo and was happy to be simply a collegial musician: he…
Jenny Wollerman, Catrin Johnsson (sopranos), New Zealand String Quartet, Prazak Quartet, Martin and Victoria Jaenecke (violas), Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass), Douglas Mews (harpsichord)
Brancott Winery, Blenheim, Thursday 29 January 2009 At lunchtime in the Nelson School of Music there was a charming recital from Swedish soprano Catrin Johnsson and New Zealand pianist Rachel Fuller in songs by Mozart, Sibelius, Stenhammer…
Nelson Cathedral, Wednesday 28 January On the sixth day of the festival came the concert that many of the committed chamber music passionnées had most looked forward to. The superb Prazak Quartet had their own concert, and played music…
St John’s Methodist Church, Tuesday 27 January At 1pm the festival broke ground by presenting a free concert in St John’s Methodist Church and Nelson responded by filling it. It was no miscellany of pop classics: the New Zealand String…
Nelson Cathedral, Tuesday 27 January I should have known what to expect from the evening concert from the trombone quartet Bonanza – the name a creaky sort of pun. Though they’ve been around for 12 years, I had never heard them. I’m…
Flights of Fancy: music by Handel, Falla, Piazolla, Persichetti, De Castro Robinson, Grenfell, Andres, Fauré, Ravel, Ibert Flight: Bridget Douglas (flute) and Carolyn Mills (harp)
Nelson School of Music Sunday, 25 January The evening concert was absolutely the essential stuff of a music festival; these performances, of great music, would have excited audiences at great European festivals like Verbier or La Roque…
Gala Opening Concert Telemann: Concerto for four violins; String quartet (Michael Norris); Ravel: Introduction and Allegro for flute, clarinet, harp and string quartet; Smetana: String Quartet, ‘From my life’