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13 reviews
Haydn’s “The Creation” seems to be on the “short list” of anybody’s compendium of great choral music experiences, but it was something that had, purely by accident, evaded me over the years. This of course necessitated on my part some…
(This review was written by Steven Sedley in conjunction with other Middle C reviewers) Orchestra Wellington’s Faust Robert Schumann – Scenes from Goethe’s Faust
Saturday 14 November, 7:30 pm The introduction to the programme by the chairperson of the Choir, Frances Manwaring, remarks that this was the choir’s first ‘self-presented’ concert in 2020 – the only other public appearance was with…
Saturday, 7 th December, 2019 There would probably have been a number of people at this “Messiah” performance, both performers and audience members, who had shared something of my own experience a couple of hours before the concert’s…
Saturday 8 th December 2018 Just for interest’s sakes I hearkened back to my “Middle C” review of an earlier Messiah here in Wellington conducted by Nicholas McGegan with the NZSO three years previously, one which I hailed as a focused and…
Friday, 25 August 2017, 6.30pm Berlioz was a non-conformist, musically. In an ironic twist, the otherwise excellent programme notes said he ‘flaunted rules and regulations’ whereas in fact he flouted them, falling out with audience and…
Saturday, 29th April 2017 As with music and art in general, people’s responses to matters of spiritual belief seem to vary enormously from individual to individual. Despite what seems like an ever-increasing secularisation of everyday…
(Next and final performance: Thursday 16th February, at 7:30pm) One of the pleasures of reviewing for me is fronting up to performances of music which I simply don’t know, and subsequently asking myself (sometimes in tones of amazement and…
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Graham Abbott (conductor), with Madeleine Pierard (soprano), Christopher Field (counter-tenor), Henry Choo (tenor), James Clayton (bass), The Tudor Consort (Michael Stewart, Music Director), James Tibbles…
Saturday 8 August, 3 pm Michael Vinten and his Bach Choir had decided to explore some pretty unexpected choral repertoire with this concert of mid-nineteenth century, plus a rather out-of-season, comparable work from half a century later.
Martin Snell (Elijah), Lisa-Harper-Brown (widow), Maaike Christie-Beekman (Angel), Jamie Young (Obadiah), Archie Taylor (Boy); voice students of New Zealand School of Music,
Sunday 26 April, 2:30 pm The Kapiti Chamber Choir is the smaller of the two choirs in the district (the other, larger, choir is the Kapiti Chorale) established or taken over by Peter Godfrey after he came to Kapiti.
The Tudor Consort with The Chiesa Ensemble (comprising 25 members of the NZSO, with Douglas Mews harpsichord), directed by Michael Stewart