NZTrio Homeland Three tour: energy and intensity Image credit: Chris Watson/SOUNZ The final NZTrio Wellington concert for 2023 began quietly with gorgeous music played with great sensitivity. Three Nocturnes by Ernest Bloch, a composer perhaps best-known for music drawn from his Jewish heritage, reveal a side of the Swiss-born American heard less often. The atmospheric writing in the first two Nocturnes is almost French, influenced perhaps by Bloch’ s years studying and working in Belgium, Germany and France. Violin and cello are often muted, and the light and delicate Andante is followed by ..read more

In their new album Notes from a journey ll, Te Haerenga, the New Zealand String Quartet's journey through the music of Aotearoa continues, with subtle shifts in the direction of travel. Their first Notes from a Journey in 2010, with quartets by John Psathas, Ross Harris, Jack Body and Michael Norris, ended with Gareth Farr’s Poroporoaki (Farewell), composed with legendary taonga puoro champion Richard Nunns. New Zealand String Quartet …their journey through the music of Aotearoa continues. The new album begins with another Poroporoaki, this one by Gillian Whitehead, dedicated to Nunns, who d ..read more

Madeleine Pierard (Marie) and Julien van Mellaerts (Wozzeck) with Orchestra Wellington directed by Marc Taddei in the New Zealand premiere of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck Image credit: Chris Watson When Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck was announced this time last year as the conclusion to Orchestra Wellington’s 2023 season, I was amazed by their brilliant audacity in planning the New Zealand premiere of this famously demanding work. The production itself, a few days ago, was nothing short of astonishing. Composed a century ago, and immediately successful beyond its composer’s dreams, Wozzeck is now consid ..read more

A review of Jenny McLeod: A Life in Music by Norman Meehan Composer Jenny McLeod created Prosaic Notes from an Unwritten Journal in 2016 for the annual Lilburn Lecture, an event marking the late Douglas Lilburn’s birthday. In this whimsical verse account of her life and career, she asked, humorously, “Do I really have a ‘Voice’? Don’t ask me! To me I’m always me…”. Writing a biography of one of this country’s most brilliant, inventive and unpredictable composers, Norman Meehan succeeds magnificently in capturing McLeod’s eloquent, witty and individual voice. She wrote throughout her life abou ..read more

Quiet timpani open Anthony Ritchie’s Symphony No 6 with a sense of foreboding. The first movement, ‘Crisis’, has a poignant melody, called by the composer a “love theme”, immediately striking because it is played by the saxophone, “as if from a lonesome balcony in search of a listener”.   Instrumental colours are painted on the orchestral canvas – the second theme is floated by the flute above bird-like woodwinds, low strings add to the darkness, and tension is built by syncopated figures from brass and fierce percussion. The key of Eb minor reinforces the sombre character. Setting out t ..read more

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, with Music Director Karen Grylls, perform Robert Wiremu’s Mozart Reimagined: Requiem in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland. The lower slopes of Mt Erebus in the Antarctic in 1979, where 257 people died in a tragic aircraft crash, seem very far from the Vienna of 1791 in which Mozart died, leaving his Requiem in D minor unfinished. But in Mozart Reimagined: Requiem, composer Robert Wiremu (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Porou), music director Karen Grylls and the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir have brought together times, places and feelings in an as ..read more

AWE musicians perform Tchaikovsky’s sextet Souvenir de Florence at Rippon Hall in Wanaka Photo credit: Nat Symonds “Chamber music is not about a smaller scale, it’s about higher intensity,” says London-based violinist Benjamin Baker, Artistic Director of one of Aotearoa’s newest musical events, the annual At the World’s Edge Festival (AWE). That musical intensity thrilled audiences at the third AWE this month. Set amongst the grand scenery of the mountainous Queenstown Lakes District, the festival travelled to four small, intimate venues in the Central Otago region. This year, concerts were h ..read more

The essence of cabaret is captured with delicious ease by two New Zealand musicians, singer Stephanie Acraman and pianist Liam Wooding, in their new recording of The Complete Cabaret Songs by American pianist and composer William Bolcom. That essence requires a magical, intimate rapport between pianist and singer, and between performers and audience. It’s witty, humorous, and satirical. It’s also emotionally subtle, blending mockery with empathy, poignant sadness with superficial joy. Musically it’s improvisatory and free. And it’s all there in this new Rattle album. Cabaret began in France i ..read more

Soprano Deborah Wai Kapohe (Eurydice) and Samson Setu (Orpheus) - fine and passionate singing Image credit: Andi Crown In an artistic world where a desire for innovation through a contemporary lens is becoming commonplace, director and choreographer Neil Ieremia's (m)Orpheus is the most imaginative "reimagining" I have experienced. And I use the word "experienced" advisedly, because this stunning fusion of Baroque opera, Siva Samoa (Samoan dance), contemporary dance and timeless storytelling is rich, multi-sensory and full of complex and fearless boundary-crossing. In his introductory note, I ..read more

The New Zealand String Quartet on tour - (from left) Gillian Ansell (viola), Helene Pohl (1st violin), Monique Lapins (2nd violin), Rolf Gjelsten (cello). Photo credit: Latitude Creative When Bohemian composer Bedřich Smetana composed a musical autobiography in his 50’s, it was no accident that he chose a string quartet for expression of his most personal thoughts and feelings. He had experienced intense loss, with three of his daughters dying in childhood. Two years before he composed his String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, Opus 16 (‘From my life’), Smetana became completely deaf, after experie ..read more