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30 reviews
I’d not heard the Elouan String Quartet play together before (and they were formed in 2024, so goodness knows where I had been!) However, I was familiar with three of the quartet members in different performing contexts, violinists Jessica…
Sitting in Futuna Chapel, in Karori, on a recent Sunday afternoon, listening to a concert of music given by a trio of extremely talented performers (flutist, violist and soprano vocalist), I found myself thinking at various stages of the…
Things were “swinging away” in great end-of-the-day style at “The Rogue and Vagabond”, the watering-place right next to central Wellington’s Glover Park, as I made my way, a little tentatively, just around the corner and further along…
To the title of this review I was tempted to add the word “enterprising”, in referring to the inclusion in Wellington City Orchestra’s programme of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s little-known and until recently rarely locally-performed Third…
It’s not often I get to share my lunchtime concert routine with others, but this week I was joined by my friend (and flatmate). Thankfully, she’s a flutist, and was very generous in helping me with my terminology. As someone with a…
Saturday, 1st October, 2022 A grey and damp Saturday afternoon in Wellington was the perfect environment from which to seek refuge in this concert of brilliant and invigorating works played by the WYO at the top of its game. While the…
Sunday, 12 th December 2021 Congratulations right at the outset are in order to whomever devised such a scintillating programme for the Wellington Chamber Orchestra to finish this remarkably unpredictable year of years with! It certainly…
Wednesday, 18 November 2020 One of the great joys of the lunch time concerts at St. Andrews on the Terrace is that these provide opportunities to hear some of the talented artists living among us, the other is to hear music that otherwise…
Saturday, 26 th September, 2020 Pandemic restrictions having been relaxed of late (though judiciously more “on hold” than entirely done away with), we were allowed more-or-less regularly-spaced seating at St. Andrew’s to hear the most…
Thursday, 30 th July 2020 This year’s final of the NZSM Concerto Competition provided something of a musical feast, even if one of the concertos performed (Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto) was presented with a somewhat truncated finale,…
Sunday, 8 th March 2020 Every now and then (and without warning) a “Middle C” reviewer will be overcome by a “questing s
Music by Vivaldi, Donizetti, Chris Adams, Respighi, Ben Hoadley, Bellini (via Eugene Jancourt) and Bizet (via Peter Simpson)
Saturday, 8 th June, 2019 To my great relief the NZSO abandoned the idea of presenting this, the second concert of their Baroque Series, in Wellington Cathedral, the first concert there having been a mixed blessing of an affair, with the…
Friday 31 May, 7 pm 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…
Sunday 16 September 3 pm We have owed a great deal to this splendid, many-facetted ensemble over the years, held together by NZSO Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong. Most ‘chamber music’ groups are either trios or quartets, and…
Wednesday 5 September, 12:15 pm While the series of concerts from students that occupies St Andrew’s lunchtime series regularly around this time of the year, are always a delight and sometimes expose unusual and interesting music, it’s…
Wednesday, 23 May 2018, 12.15 pm It is interesting to hear music students at different levels of their courses, and of ability and achievement. All these students, though, performed well and provided engaging music. In most cases they were…
Wednesday 16 May, 7:30 pm Te reo Maori for the numeral 3 is toru ; thus ‘Toru Trio’ is a redundancy. This instrumental trio comprises harp, viola and flute, modelled on Debussy’s war-time piece; all are players in Orchestra Wellington. All…
Wednesday 5 July, 12:15 pm A fortnight ago at St Andrew’s we heard Rebecca Steel as a member of a quintet of flutes from the RNZAF Band in a splendidly diverting programme of music (mostly) arranged for five flutes. So I had hesitated…
Wednesday 30 November, 12:15 pm Here were two names that were slightly familiar to me but which I couldn’t really offer biographical information about. Both studied in Wellington: Nick at the Conservatorium of Music at Massey University,…
Wednesday, 23 November 2016, 12.15 pm A large audience greeted a wonderfully varied line-up of professional musicians – and of music. The opening work immediately grabbed one’s attention; Ginastera’s work was delightful and full of subtle…
Wednesday 8 June, 12:15 pm Most of the lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s offer interesting music, either familiar or unusual, played by fine musicians. Students are worth hearing as they almost always exceed one’s expectations for the…
Wednesday 6 April, 12:45 pm I’ve heard Rebecca Steel at least three times over the past year, playing with a pianist or as part of a trio, in interesting music, often adapted from music for other instruments: Debussy piano pieces,…
Music by Debussy ( En bateau and La plus que lente ), Persichetti (Serenade No 10 for flute and harp), Bach (Flute sonata in G minor, BWV 1020), Piazzolla ( Bordello and Café from Histoire du tango )
Nikau Chamber Ensemble (Konstanze Artmann, violin; Karen Batten, flute; Christiaan van der Zee, viola; Margaret Guldborg, cello)
Wednesday 12 August, 12:15 pm According to Bridget Douglas’s programme note, Le merle noir was the only piece that Messiaen wrote for the solo flute, which seems extraordinary in the light of his passion for bird song for which the…
Sunday 3 May, 2:30 pm This, just incidentally, was the third recital involving a flute within a month – see Middle C of 1 and 29 April.
Wednesday 29 April, 12:15 pm A flute recital that contained no big composer names might not have seemed particularly enticing. And in some ways it wasn’t, there was nothing that really demanded being embedded in the memory or prompted a…
Wednesday 1 April, 12:15 pm It’s not clear what has brought Gabriella Kopias to Wellington, but it was whispered to me that she would rather like to stay here. That would be lovely, not because there is any lack of excellent flutists in…
Sunday 11 August, 2:30pm A relatively unusual ensemble usually calls up music that is similarly off the beaten track, and this was no exception.
