Chamber Music New Zealand Announces 2018 Season: Music Up Close

Italy, Sweden, New Zealand, Russia, Romania, UK, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, and the USA: A year-long festival of music
 
With a programme ranging from the Beatles to Beethoven and musicians hailing from Italy, Sweden, Russia, Romania, Germany, The Netherland, Japan, the United States, Britain, Australia and Aotearoa Chamber Music New Zealand’s 2018 Concert Season is a year-long festival of music.

The full programme for the 2018 Concert Season was announced this week and features 10 ensembles touring throughout New Zealand.

CMNZ Chief Executive Peter Walls said the season combines “breathtaking quality with extraordinary range with illustrious artists, beautiful programmes and an enticing variety of genre and style".

With a programme ranging from the Beatles to Beethoven and musicians hailing from Italy, Sweden, Russia, Romania, Germany, The Netherland, Japan, the United States, Britain, Australia and Aotearoa Chamber Music New Zealand’s 2018 Concert Season is a year-long festival of music.

The full programme for the 2018 Concert Season was announced this week and features 10 ensembles touring throughout New Zealand.

CMNZ Chief Executive Peter Walls said the season combines “breathtaking quality with extraordinary range with illustrious artists, beautiful programmes and an enticing variety of genre and style".

It all begins in March with a 10-centre tour by dynamic American piano duo Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe with two programmes either exploring the explosive energy of two pianos or the rich intimacy of four hands on a single keyboard and fusing classical and pop music. Bernstein, The Beatles, Gluck, John Adams, Stravinsky and Leonard Cohen all feature.

Walls said this tour, presented in association with the New Zealand Festival and Auckland Arts Festival will “ignore stylistic boundaries. These two virtuoso pianists have been playing together since they were students at The Juilliard School. They project the meaning of what they play in witty and engaging ways."

Christchurch-born violinist Kate Oswin returns in April with all-female Behn Quartet. Taking their name from trailblazing 17th century writer Aphra Behn, these fresh, fierce women have been earning rave reviews since forming two years ago and were the winners of the 2016 Amadeus Prize.

They perform in nine centres with a programme featuring Dvorak’s popular string quartet ‘American’ and Jack Body’s ‘Three Transcriptions’. The concert in Invercargill is presented in association with Southland Festival.

The world’s best viol ensemble heads to New Zealand in April and May. The Gramophone Award-winning Phantasm performs in five centres exploring the rich repertoire of the viol consort and featuring excerpts from Bach’s profound Art of Fugue.

In May award-winning American author Alex Ross (The Rest Is Noise) takes a trip into the history of chamber music in the 20th and 21st century, dispelling myths surrounding the masterpieces. Together with mezzo soprano Bianca Andrew and STROMA, this will be an illuminating musical tasting session. In Auckland, the concert is presented in association with Auckland Writers Festival.

Thrilling audiences with dynamic and charismatic performances, the Heath Quartet is one of Britain’s most exciting chamber ensembles and heads to New Zealand in June. Winners of the 2016 GramophoneChamber Music Award with their debut recording, this quartet is fast earning an electric reputation. The concerts will include a new CMNZ commission from well-known Wellington composer Gareth Farr.

Exciting new Swedish/New Zealand ensemble, Klara Kollektiv formed in 2016 to perform new repertoire and familiar favourites. Based in Sweden, the ensemble features New Zealanders Anna McGregor (clarinet) and Manu Berkeljon (violin) together with Swedish pianist Taru Kurki. Performing three concerts in Palmerston North, New Plymouth and Invercargill the programme features the New Zealand premiere of Anthony Ritchie’s Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano.

As part of the tour, Klara Kollektiv will also perform in eight regional centres as part of the Regional Series including Whangarei, Warkworth, Whakatane, Rotorua, Whanganui, Waikanae, Lower Hutt and Wanaka.

Italy’s Ensemble Zefiro features in August in eight centres. Technically brilliant imaginative exponents of 18th century wind instruments, Zefiro has claimed the Grand Prix du Disque and Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice award.  On their tour they perform two programmes – a banquet of Handel, Telemann, Haydn and Mozart; and the second dedicated entirely to Mozart.

In September Russia’s Borodin Quartet returns to perform in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The Borodin Quartet is acclaimed globally as one of the world’s greatest quartets in the Russian tradition and performed at the funerals of Stalin and Prokofiev. The concerts mark the 125th anniversary of the death of Tchaikovsky with the programme featuring his String Quartet No 1 In D Major, alongside Shostakovich, Wolf and Haydn.

2017 Michael Hill International Violin Competition winner Ioana Cristina Goicea from Romania performs in 10 centres in September and October. And for the first time ever, Chamber Music New Zealand has paired her with another major young musician to watch, the winner of the 2016 Sydney International Piano Competition Russia’s Andrey Gugnin.

Together this duo will perform works of lush Romantic and contemporary music from Schubert’s experimental Rondo Brilliant to New Zealand’s own Karlo Margetić. The tour includes concerts in Whangarei, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Waikanae, Upper Hutt, Wellington, Nelson, Motueka, Dunedin and Invercargill.

Closing the 2018 season is a five-centre tour by Australian pianist Piers Lane with Japan’s ‘ace of bass’ Hiroshi Ikematsu and members of the New Zealand String Quartet. The centrepiece of their programme is Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet – the most popular chamber music work of all time. Alongside the ‘Trout’ is a new CMNZ commission from Ross Harris that reflects on the soundscape of trout fishing rivers near Turangi.

Subscriber tickets are now on sale for the Chamber Music New Zealand 2018 Concert Season. Single tickets for Anderson & Roe go on public sale from Monday 30 October and all remaining concert tickets are on public sale from Friday 16 February 2018. For full details of the season and ticketing options for 2018 visit www.chambermusic.co.nz/2018

Chamber Music New Zealand acknowledges major funding from Creative New Zealand.