Final Countdown To A Wonderful Festival

Final Countdown To A Wonderful Festival

With just seven days to go to our first festival event, excitement is building and bags are being packed in anticipation of the wonderful musical experience ahead!

There are very few changes to our advertised programme, which is a considerable achievement given its complexity and range!

The Penderecki String Quartet visiting from Canada have a new cellist with Katie Schlaikjer. Katie toured extensively with both the Colorado Quartet and as a soloist before joining the Penderecki (photo opposite) last year.

You can read about the Penderecki String Quartet here and Katie Schlaikjer here.

Our Australian horn player Robert Johnson is unfortunately no longer available but we're thrilled to announce we have engaged Darryl Poulsen also based in Australia. Darryl has held principal horn positions in European and Australian orchestras and performed throughout Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Australia. As a soloist, he has toured with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, and internationally with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, as well as occupying the position of principal horn in the latter orchestra for many years.

Finally we have decided to cancel the Brass Workshop scheduled for 6th February. The brass music fraternity are already very well serviced by exceptional local teachers and we felt four exciting events on Waitangi Day was probably enough to keep everyone occupied!

Gillian's Picks

We've asked our artistic directors to contribute to our 'Picks' column.

I'm pretty excited about all the pieces I'll be involved in performing in myself -- there are so many favourites there!

I've chosen 10 concerts/works where I can just be in the audience lapping it all up. I'm really looking forward to hearing Peter Nagy's piano recital of Chopin and Scriabin Preludes, The Minguet Quartet's Bach, Rihm and Brahms concert, Colin Carr's Bach solo cello suites, BonaNZa's "The Magic Trombone", (which will no doubt be a real hoot, if last time is anything to go by), Jenny McLeod's new song cycle with Jenny Wollerman and Emma Sayers, Bartok 5 with the Penderecki Quartet, Paul Schonfield's "Cafe Music" with the NZTrio, the sextet version of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" sonata, New Zealand Guitar Quartet in Concert and the Penderecki Quartet playing the Hatzis quartet in the Grand Finale.

Roll on 1 February!

Gillian Ansell, Artistic Director

Helene's Picks

And Helen's thoughts are.....

My pick for today is the Bold Strokes concert. Firstly, when will you hear 2 pianos, 2 cellos and a horn up on stage together? Then, the Ligeti Horn Trio has become a classic in our time - and this is an opportunity to peer beneath its compositional surface with one of New Zealand's own premier composers, and then hear it performed with a pianist who himself learned it under Ligeti! Re the second movement: I'm having fun getting comfy with the Bulgarian 3+3+2 rhythm - on the surface it adds up to a boringly normal 4/4 bar , but divided in this way, it's totally catchy!

And after interval, what's not to like about one of the great favourites of the chamber music repertoire, the Dvorak Piano Quintet in A major? As a teenager, it was my all time fave, and I think I wore out our family's old vinyl disc playing it... And our old friend Peter Nagy is sure to bring a new approach to it - we are looking forward to that!

Helene Pohl, Artistic Director

In The News

The Listener published an interesting article this week written by Elizabeth Kerr about our guest cellist Colin Carr from England. If you're a Listener subscriber you can read the article here.

Manager Bob Bickerton wrote an Voices column for the Nelson Mail which was published on Saturday, which touches on the importance of the Festival to the Nelson economy. You can read the article here.

In next weeks issue we'll give you an idea of which concerts will be broadcast soon on Concert FM and also give you a link to the Chamber Music New Zealand blog on the Festival.

ends

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