Latest news with #RNZConcert
RNZ News
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Making rainbow connections
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Tabea Squire Photo: Eustie Kamath Once again, secondary school music students across the country are competing in Aotearoa's annual chamber music contest. But for this, the competition's 60th incarnation, composer Tabea Squire has attempted to address a perennial issue: how do you put very different ensembles on an equal footing? Squire's solution is a little like a set of Lego blocks - short musical phrases coded by colour (she calls them 'bricks') some of them pitched, some just rhythm - which competitors can arrange, repeat, mix and match as they like, to build their own piece. It's called "Rainbow Construction" and the blocks she's set out in the user manual represent all the colours of said rainbow, along with ultraviolet, which is a family of options for rests. As in the sounds you can't hear - get it? Speaking to RNZ Concert, Squire said the inspiration for the piece came from Terry Riley's "In C" which also invites players to mix and match musical ideas set out by the composer. Squire says there's only one hard and fast rule: don't transpose the notes she's written in the bricks into different keys. Otherwise it's all over to the competing groups and the instruments they use, be they steel percussion bands or string quartets or anything in between, to decide how to build their piece. And no, if it doesn't suit your ensemble, Squire says you don't have to attempt it. Meanwhile Squire, who won the composition category of the New Zealand Community Trust Chamber Music Contest in 2006, continues to work on her fully-scored music for concerts, including one which the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will play later this year. And here's a video of another of her works, "I Dance, Unseen". District rounds for this year's NZCT Chamber Music Contest began this week, with the final in Auckland in August.
Scoop
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Sunday Concerts Presents Amici Ensemble As A Piano Quartet
Sunday Concerts presents the Amici Ensemble at 3 pm on Sunday 25 May 2025 at St Andrews on The Terrace, Wellington. The members of the Ensemble are Donald Armstrong, violin; Monique Lapins, viola; Robert Ibell, cello; and Jian Liu, piano. They are performing two of the mighty works of the chamber music repertoire. Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, a work of profound emotional depth and musical richness, was written at time when his friend Robert Schumann was struggling with mental illness. Fauré's Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor embodies the elegance of French Impressionism, his refined musical language and his poetic inspirations. The String Trio by Jean Françaix , a witty, graceful, intricate and utterly delightful work, has huge technical challenges for the musicians but lends an effortless air. As Françaix himself said, 'I am always told that my works are easy. Whoever says that has probably not played them.' Do not miss this wonderful concert by four of New Zealand's top musicians! For more information see or Eventfinda for bookings. Tickets are $40 or $10 for those under 26. School students are free if accompanying an adult. Background information Wellington Chamber Music was formed in 1945 and has been presenting Sunday Concerts since 1982. The concerts feature top NZ artists and most concerts are recorded by RNZ Concert for later broadcast – often heard in the 1-3 pm slot on RNZ Concert. Ticket prices are modest as the organisers are unpaid volunteers, though the artists receive professional fees. The Amici Ensemble was formed in 1988 and is led by NZSO Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong. The Ensemble membership varies each year to match the works being performed. Many of the artists are senior members of the NZ Symphony Orchestra and leading chamber musicians on the New Zealand music scene.
RNZ News
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Musical life on a C string
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Serenity Thurlow (Ngāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Porou), Principal Violist with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. Photo: Christchurch Symphony Orchestra It took a while for Serenity Thurlow to settle on the viola - she could have easily have gone for the violin instead. When asked by RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump what lead her to focus on the former, she's quick to answer: "I prefer the C string to the A string". In other words, the rich, mellow sound that comes out of the lowest string of a viola beats the sound of the violin's top string, no matter how many good tunes the fiddle gets. Thurlow (who is Ngāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Porou) will be putting all four strings of her viola to good use when she moves out from the front desk of her section to the front of the stage to play Bartók's viola concerto. She spoke with Crump ahead of her performance with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra on 17 May , about her whanau's ties to Ōtautahi (Christchurch), and also the story behind the concerto, which was unfinished when Bartók died. Bartok's friend Tibor Serly was the first person to attempt to complete it, followed by Bartók's own son Peter. However, others wondered if those editions had made too many changes from Bartók's sketched notes to accommodate the player it was written for, violist William Primrose. Hungarian violist Csaba Erdélyi prepared a new edition, but copyright laws prevented him from publishing it in the Northern Hemisphere. Thurlow says the solution was to get it published in New Zealand (by the music publisher Promethean Editions ) and this will be the version she'll be playing with the CSO. Serenity Thurlow, Principal Violist, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra Photo: Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
RNZ News
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Darren Pickering: the best lessons in life are free
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Darren Pickering Photo: Adam Hodgson Darren Pickering didn't need a teacher to learn the piano, just a tape recorder and a couple of very supportive parents. Growing up as an only child in Gisborne, Pickering spent many hours in his room listening to pop and rock music, then recording his own attempts at the keyboard on cassette tape. Listening back, he developed his own sense of what worked. Later, when he heard jazz pianists for the first time - the likes of Bill Evans, for example - he did the same. For Pickering, developing his own inner ear was a crucial part of his musical development; the web is full of videos showing musicians how to perform, how to sound. That's great on one level, but are musicians learning to be artists, or just to imitate? All the music on Pickering's album Three is his own. The album is the third in his Darren Pickering Small Worlds series, released on Rattle Records. He spoke with RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump about the album, and some of the other musical projects he's involved in. Now based in Christchurch, he's one of the most sought-after session musicians in a busy music scene that encompasses everything from alt-country to synth-pop. Pickering told Crump he values his time making other people's music as much as he does making his own - nothing beats exposure to different genres when it comes to stimulating creativity. And Pickering has a whole backlog of his own ideas waiting for an outlet. Only these days he records them onto his smartphone, rather than cassette. Darren Pickering Small Worlds. From left: Pete Fleming, Heather Webb, Jono Blackie, Darren Pickering Photo: G. Easterbrook
