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35 reviews
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…
Trio Obscura’s name reminded me somewhat of TS Eliot’s wonderfully idiosyncratic poem “The Naming of Cats”, in which the poet describes a cat’s reverie when contemplating “…his ineffable, effable, effanineffable, deep and inscrutable,…
Shostakovich and his music have never before had it quite so good in Wellington New Zealand – throughout this year of years for the composer (the fiftieth anniversary of his death) his music has undergone an exploration of a concentrated…
I’d seen this programme by the Wellington City Orchestra advertised, and was instantly drawn to its boldness, variety and colour, with three works owing nothing to one another but irresistibly drawn together by their very singularity and…
Friday, October 20 th , 2023 Sometimes one goes to a concert which by dint of the music and the playing seems not a moment too short or too long – this evening, with merely two works on the programme (one of which took less than two thirds…
Project funded by Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand A 2008 concert in Wellington given by the then Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei featured the very first performance in New Zealand of Russian-born Israeli…
Atoll Records ACD 280 This recording has gone to the top of my “play for friends” list! The beauty and expressiveness of it all instantly captivates whomever I demonstrate the disc to, and never fails to re-ignite my own initial…
Thursday, 8 th August, 2019 What an excellent idea it was of Chamber Music New Zealand’s to invite viola virtuoso Jennifer Stumm here to perform with Wellington’s Te Koki Trio! – her presence enabled a richly varied programme to be…
Zephyr Wills (viola), Rebecca Warnes (cello), Hayden Nickel (violin), Ellen Murfitt (violin), Emily Paterson (cello), Tamina Beveridge (piano)
Wednesday 17 October, 12:15 pm One rarely goes to a recital by students from Victoria University’s school of music (also known as the New Zealand School of Music and Te Koki), without being surprised to be exposed to interesting, often…
Wednesday 13 June, 12:15 pm This is the time for music students to use the facilities and be exposed to audiences at St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts in preparation for their first semester assessments. For audiences too, there are a couple…
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 9 November, 12:15 pm Having left the reviewing duty unplanned, both Lindis Taylor and I found ourselves at this recital, mutually unaware of each other at the time; we decided to combine our impressions. Prizes (a free annual…
Wednesday 18 October, 12:15 pm Three violists and two pianists put this lunchtime programme together. Such student presentations always reveal music that one has never come across before, and the discoveries here – not the composers’…
Friday, 6 October 2017, 6.30pm Here was a stirring programme, the items linked by their composers’ inspirations from Italy. It happens that these three were all superb orchestrators; the works all exploited the orchestra fully.
Friday 22 September 2017, 7pm A rather small audience enjoyed a ‘Bach sandwich’ as the artists described it. The opening work, played by viola and organ immediately impressed with the euphonious tone of the viola, which one so seldom hears…
Wednesday 6 September, 12:15 pm St Andrew’s managed to attract one of the visitors to the 44th International Viola Congress that was held in Wellington over the weekend. Polish violist Marcin Murawski together with pianist Gabriela Glapska…
Monday, 4th September, 2017 This concert marked the conclusion of the 44th International Viola Congress, one which brought aficionados from everywhere in the world to Wellington for no less than five days of intense viola interaction.…
As a counter to the day’s wintry woes, the music of Johannes Brahms provided an interlude of gentle autumnal rest and refreshment, with the first of the two late clarinet sonatas (here performed in the version for viola made by the…
Tuesday 23 May. 7:30 pm Looking back over Middle C’s reviews of the Wellington Youth Orchestra, one sees a couple of repeated themes. One that through them we sometimes hear unfamiliar but great and enjoyable music, and that the citizens…
Wednesday 8 March, 12:15 pm The names of the two performers at this lunchtime concert should no doubt have been familiar to me, as they have been on the Wellington scene on and off for a long time; both had played in the NZSO. Both have…
Music by Herbert Zipper, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Lori Laitman, Boris Pigovat, Viktor Ullman, Laurence Sherr, Richard Fuchs and Gideon Klein
Wednesday, 25 May 2016, 12.15pm My apologies if I have not got the first performers’ names correctly; they were not in the printed programme, but were announced at the beginning of the concert. However, a person behind me was talking on a…
Wednesday, 7 October 2015, 12.15pm Having been told the previous day, and by the listed outline of concerts to come in this week of NZSM student recitals that this was to be one of ‘viola students’, I was disappointed to discover that in…
Wednesday 4th March, 2015 At the beginning of the concert Peter Barber announced a change to the printed programme, one involving both a rearrangement of the existing order, and an additional item. So, Brahms’ FAE Sonata Scherzo Movement ,…
Wednesday 15 th October 2014 This concert was an Honours music degree recital for Alexa Thomson, and St.Andrew’s church was a most suitable venue for this scale of performance. The Brahms Sonata is, of course, one of the lynchpins of the…
Friday, 7 June 2013, 7.30pm One might think that a recital composed entirely of unaccompanied Bach would not reveal the versatility of the performer. In fact, it did. The other thought is that it would pall for the audience. Although I…
Vincent Hardaker, Megan Ward, Felicity Baker (cello), Alexa Thomson, Alice McIvor with Stephen Clothier, Rafaella Garlick-Grice (pianists)
Wednesday, 10 October 2012, 12.15pm These major twentieth-century viola works (excluding the Schumann) made an impressive muster. The latest composition was Bloch’s, dating from 1958 (and the most modern-sounding it was); 1928-29 was the…
Wednesday 26 September, 12.15pm I find that I heard other embodiments of this ensemble last year, and a solo performance by Megan Ward in June. Previous experiences entertained me more than this one did, though there were things, such as…
Wednesday 4 July, 12.15pm Students at New Zealand schools of music, and those at the school in Wellington in particular are fortunate in working in an environment that both encourages original composition and its performance, and…
Friday 22nd June 2012 Rarely does a concert begin more poetically than when Schubert’s music is involved – or so it always seems at the time. The opening exchanges between piano and, in this case, viola, of the intriguingly-named…
Wednesday 20 June, 12.15pm This lunchtime recital was a showcase of four viola students, taught variously by Donald Maurice, Claudine Bigelow and Gillian Ansell.
Wednesday 6 June, 12.15pm The long-standing series of lunchtime concerts at Lower Hutt has started; they run through till the end of October.
Atoll ACD 114 This recording commemorates the first performance outside the Ukraine of Boris Pigovat’s Requiem , given by violist Donald Maurice, with the Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei, on November 9th, 2008 at the…
