CHAMBER MUSIC NEW ZEALAND presents COMPOSER CONNECTIONS

Transcription

1 CHAMBER MUSIC NEW ZEALAND presents COMPOSER CONNECTIONS

2 TURNOVSKY JUBILEE ENSEMBLE Touring New Zealand 2 25 June 2015 Celebrating 50 years of New Zealand s iconic Chamber Music Contest Proud supporters of this tour Encore, CMNZ s Supporter Programme, provides many avenues for you to help guarantee that others can continue to enjoy chamber music, just as you do today. You can play a vital part in the future of chamber music in New Zealand by giving to our Foundation. We thank all our donors for their generous support. For more information about Encore, visit We would like to thank our Jubilee patrons for their generosity and support: Core Patron: Sir James Wallace KNZM Gold Jubilee Patrons: Paul and Sheryl Baines, Donald and Susan Best, Philip and Rosalind Burdon Graeme and Di Edwards, Ann Harden (in memory of Joan Kerr) Tom and Ann Morris, Roger and Catherine Taylor, Lloyd Williams and Cally McWha David and the late Helen Zwartz Please respect the music, the musicians, and your fellow audience members, by switching off all cellphones, pagers and watches. Taking photographs, or sound or video recordings during the concert is strictly prohibited unless with the prior approval of Chamber Music New Zealand.

3 Composer Connections 1 Welcome Programme Composer connections : don t all concerts connect performers to composers and audiences to performers and composers? Of course. But there is something quite special about the concerts in our Composer Connections series. The starting point is composers connecting with composers. By inviting a group of New Zealand composers to design concert programmes Chamber Music New Zealand was essentially asking them what music they relate to most strongly. The answers tell us quite a lot about each composer s stylistic orientation but, more than that, they produce a rich and varied mix of old and new. Ross Harris and the New Zealand String Quartet have a long-standing creative partnership. Ross admires the Quartet for their perfectionism and commitment to New Zealand music. For their part, the Quartet have long realized that Ross is a composer of real genius. Ross is quite explicit about his priorities in curating this programme: Bach, Mozart and Shostakovich are all composers who are concerned with motivic development and clarity of structure virtues that are to the forefront in Ross s music. Chamber Music New Zealand is proud to present these Composer Connections programmes in New Zealand Music Month, alongside the activities that we ve been able to cluster around the concerts: composer workshops and university residencies. Peter Walls Chief Executive Chamber Music New Zealand Bach Ross Harris Mozart Goldberg Variations BWV988 (selection) Variation 25 (String Quartet No 4) String Quartet in B flat K589 page 5 page 5 page 6 Wellington Hamilton Invercargill Dunedin 26 April 16 May 18 May 19 May Interval Ross Harris Shostakovich Piano Quintet String Quartet No 9 page 6 page 7 Selections performed at residencies Auckland 22 May The Wellington concert is being recorded for live broadcast by Radio NZ Concert

4 Chamber Music New Zealand New Zealand String Quartet The New Zealand String Quartet is the foremost chamber ensemble in this country, and the mosttravelled classical group. Formed by Chamber Music New Zealand in 1987, the Quartet regularly visits both large and small centres in New Zealand. They also perform internationally each year, and in 2014 toured Britain with a programme that included works by New Zealand composers John Psathas, Jack Body and Ross Harris. Early in 2014 the group premièred Requiem for the Fallen by Ross Harris at the New Zealand Festival, and they have subsequently performed the piece at festivals in Dunedin and Auckland. As teachers, members of the Quartet conduct the annual Adam Summer School for young chamber musicians, and are Quartet-in-Residence at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington. In 2013 the New Zealand String Quartet took up a residency at the China Conservatory in Beijing, as part of a collaboration with the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra and both New Zealand and Chinese composers. The New Zealand String Quartet has a long history of performing New Zealand music, and their extensive list of recordings includes a CD of Gillian Whitehead s music, and one featuring works by John Psathas, Jack Body, Ross Harris, Gareth Farr and Michael Norris. Helene Pohl violin Douglas Beilman violin Gillian Ansell viola Rolf Gjelsten cello

5 Composer Connections Stephen De Pledge New Zealand pianist Stephen De Pledge began his studies in Auckland with Margaret Crawshaw and Bryan Sayer, then undertook postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Joan Havill. He was chosen for the NFMS Young Concert Artists Award in 1996, and now performs around the world as a soloist, chamber musician and song accompanist. Since 2010 he has also been Senior Lecturer in Piano at the University of Auckland. Stephen De Pledge has a strong interest in contemporary music, and has given world première performances of many works. He has a particular connection with the music of Messiaen, and has recorded works by Arvo Pärt, Alfred Schnittke and Ned Rorem. At the 2008 New Zealand Festival he premièred the Landscape Preludes, a set of twelve new works commissioned from New Zealand composers. Stephen De Pledge piano Ross Harris composer Ross Harris Ross Harris taught music at Victoria University for over 30 years, and now works as a freelance composer. His repertoire spans piano pieces, songs, chamber music, operas and orchestral works, as well as brass band and klezmer music. The première of his opera Waituhi led to Harris being awarded the QSM in 1985, and he received the 1990 Citation for Services to New Zealand Music from the Composers Association of New Zealand. He received the SOUNZ Contemporary Award in 2000, 2005, 2006 and 2009, and in 2014 he was named as an Arts Laureate by the Arts Foundation. During his time as composer-in-residence with the Auckland Philharmonia ( ) he wrote his first two symphonies, and his third was written while he held a residency at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington.

6 Chamber Music New Zealand Composer Connections Tonight s concert is an exciting new initiative from Chamber Music New Zealand and SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music to celebrate New Zealand Music Month We are bringing together some of this country s leading composers and chamber groups so that you can experience the special connection between the two. This performance features the New Zealand String Quartet with Ross Harris, and we hope you will also have the chance to hear the other two collaborations, either live or broadcast on Radio NZ Concert: New Zealand Chamber Soloists with John Psathas, and NZTrio with three emerging composers (Alex Taylor, Karlo Margetić and Claire Cowan). Our composers have been given the chance to put together a programme that features both their own work and those of other composers who have influenced them, all played by one of New Zealand s established chamber ensembles. Ross Harris comments: When given the privilege of curating a programme including two of my own pieces I chose Mozart and Shostakovich. Why? In their late works they both exhibit mastery of form, clarity of thought and, perhaps most interesting to me, an apparent ease with which their intricate counterpoint and motivic development unfolds. Although quite different circumstances surrounded the creation of their musical worlds, their works reveal a profoundly moving fusion of emotion and technique. The New Zealand String Quartet is also enthusiastic about working with Ross: Ross has put together a dramatic programme which perfectly reflects our shared artistic and musical values and will illuminate his own moving and thoughtful compositions. We are blessed as a quartet to have a continuous stream of brilliant works from such contemporary masters as Ross to add to our rich body of repertoire. The relationship between composer and quartet spans 25 years. Ross Harris was one of the first to write for the newly-formed New Zealand String Quartet, when all of them were based at the Victoria University School of Music. His String Quartet (1990) has been followed by four more full-scale works for the ensemble, and in 2011 his song cycle The Abiding Tides was performed on a Chamber Music New Zealand tour around the country by Jenny Wollerman and the New Zealand String Quartet. The new Piano Quintet continues a long and fruitful collaboration.

7 Composer Connections 5 Johann Sebastian Bach Born Eisenach, 21 March 1685 Died Leipzig, 28 July 1750 Goldberg Variations BWV988 Aria Variation 1 Variation 2 Variation 13 The work we know as the Goldberg Variations was one of the few of Bach s works to be published during his lifetime, and was his only significant foray into the variation form. When it was issued in 1741 it was called Clavierübung [keyboard practice] and the origin of the current name is unclear, but it is considered perhaps the most significant keyboard work of the Baroque period. Written for harpsichord, it begins with an initial ornamented Aria. Thirty variations follow, based on the harmony of the Aria rather than its melody. The richness of the work comes from the fact that they are cast in various forms, ranging from canons to Baroque dances, French overtures and song-like melodies. After the contemplative Aria, the first two Variations are lively dances, with the second written as a three part counterpoint. Despite its elaborate passage-work, the thirteenth section returns to the languid mood of the opening. Like most of the set, these Variations are all in G major. Ross Harris Born Amberley, North Canterbury, 1 August 1945 Variation 25 (String Quartet No 4) Ross Harris wrote Variation 25 while he was the Creative New Zealand/Jack C Richards Composerin Residence at the New Zealand School of Music in The work was inspired by JS Bach s Variation 25, which is the heart of the set of Goldberg Variations for many people. A highly chromatic, singing Adagio in three part counterpoint, it is one of only three sections that Bach wrote in the key of G minor. Ross Harris writes: When I heard the New Zealand String Quartet perform the Goldberg Variations during their Bach and Mendelssohn series in 2007, I had a strong desire to pay my respects to the beauty and richness of the music and to write another work for the wonderful New Zealand String Quartet. I set about doing this by taking the music of the 25th Variation and using it as the basis of a single movement for string quartet. The work begins with canonic additions to the original and evolves from there.

8 6 Chamber Music New Zealand Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born Salzburg, 27 January 1756 Died Vienna, 5 December 1791 String Quartet No 22 in B flat K589 Allegro Larghetto Menuetto: Trio Allegro assai In the spring of 1789 Mozart undertook a concert tour of northern Germany, and his pupil Prince Karl Lichnowsky (who was later also a patron of Beethoven) arranged for him to have an audience with King Friedrich Wilhelm II. The Prussian Royal family was deeply musical, and the King commissioned Mozart to write six easy keyboard sonatas for his daughter and six string quartets for himself. Upon his return to Vienna, Mozart completed only the first quartet (K576) before work on his new opera Così fan tutti became all-consuming. It was eleven months before he resumed work on the quartets, completing the second of the set (K589) in May 1790, and the third (K590) the following month. The King was a competent cellist, so his instrument had to be prominent in the ensemble rather than just supplying the bass line. Mozart apparently found the task unusually difficult, and only wrote these three quartets out of the proposed set of six. The result, however, is an elegant exchange of roles between the instruments. A serene melodic idea on violin opens the first movement and is followed by an arpeggiated second theme in the high register of the cello. In the Larghetto second movement, the cello floats above the accompaniment before passing the melody on to the violin. The minuet is dominated by an extended trio section, and the final Allegro assai is a dance-like rondo in 6/8 time. Interval Ross Harris Born Amberley, North Canterbury, 1 August 1945 Piano Quintet Ross Harris wrote his Piano Quintet in 2013 as a commission for Peter and Carolyn Diessl. It is being premièred on this Chamber Music New Zealand tour. The Piano Quintet is written as a single-movement work, and the composer describes it as a series of musical ideas that alternate between slowly evolving melodies and fleeting dance-like sections.

9 Composer Connections 7 Dmitry Shostakovich Born St Petersburg, 25 September 1906 Died Moscow, 9 August 1975 String Quartet No 9 in E flat Opus 117 Moderato con moto Adagio Allegretto Adagio Allegro After the end of the Stalinist years, the Soviet Union experienced a gradual liberalisation of human rights in the 1950s under Khrushchev. Artists and writers were given greater freedom, and Shostakovich tested this with the 13th Symphony, which tells the story of the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar during the Second World War and features poems by Yevtushenko that criticise anti-semitic actions by the Soviet government. This permissive period came to an end in 1962, and Shostakovich once again found himself in trouble, with his 13th Symphony banned after just one performance. He wrote little in 1963, but the following year composed two string quartets an abstract medium that was no doubt safer than text-based works. The Quartet No 9 was the first of these two and is dedicated to his third wife Irina, who he had married in He finished it in May 1964 and presented it to the Beethoven Quartet, who had premièred all his quartets except the first. The work includes features that look forward to his late period works, such as the juxtaposition of chromatic lines with more traditional diatonic passages, and use of sparse textures. The five movements are played without a break, with the first four followed by a longer Allegro, which is itself divided into five sections. Strong motivic connections draw the whole piece together, despite the profound changes of mood. Introduced by the second violin as an accompaniment, the two main motifs - oscillating seconds, and a rising-and-falling idea grow in prominence, with the second of these most obvious in the first Adagio and the Allegretto, and the oscillating seconds more noticeable in the second Adagio. A relaxed, contented mood extends through the first two movements but is broken by the spiky polka of the third movement, and the music becomes increasingly emotionally fraught from then. Shostakovich uses one of his favourite techniques in the final movement, combining duple and triple metres to create a sense of instability. Many ideas from earlier movements reappear in the Allegro, which reaches its climax with a fugal passage in triple time. A cello cadenza returns the music to duple time and an exuberant finale.

10 Chamber Music New Zealand Regional Concerts & Other Events Board Chair, Roger King, Paul Baines, Gretchen La Roche, Sarah Sinclair, Lloyd Williams, Vanessa Van den Broek Staff Chief Executive, Peter Walls Business Manager, Jenni Hall Business Support Coordinator, Gemma Robinson Operations Coordinator, Rachel Hardie Artistic Manager, Catherine Gibson Education and Outreach Coordinator, Sue Jane Programme Writer, Jane Dawson Alumni Correspondent, Salina Fisher Audience Development Manager, Victoria Dadd Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Candice de Villiers Ticketing & Database Coordinator, Laurel Bruce Design & Print Coordinator, Darcy Woods Publicist, Sally Woodfield Office Administrator, Becky Holmes Branches Auckland: Chair, Victoria Silwood; Concert Manager, John Giffney Hamilton: Chair, Murray Hunt; Concert Manager, Gaye Duffill New Plymouth: Concert Manager, Susan Case Hawkes Bay: Chair, June Clifford; Concert Manager, Liffy Roberts Manawatu: Chair, Graham Parsons; Concert Manager, Virginia Warbrick Wellington: Concert Manager, Rachel Hardie Nelson: Chair, Annette Monti; Concert Manager, Clare Monti Christchurch: Chair, Colin McLachlan; Concert Manager, Jody Keehan Dunedin: Chair, Terence Dennis; Concert Manager, Richard Dingwall Southland: Chair, Shona Thomson; Concert Manager, Jennifer Sinclair Regional Presenters Marlborough Music Society Inc (Blenheim), Cromwell & Districts Community Arts Council, Musica Viva Gisborne, Music Society Eastern Southland (Gore), Kaitaia Community Arts Service, Aroha Music Society (Kerikeri), Chamber Music Hutt Valley, Motueka Music Group, South Waikato Music Society Inc (Putararu), Waimakariri Community Arts Council (Rangiora), Rotorua Music Federation, Taihape Music Group, Tauranga Musica Inc, Upper Hutt Music Society, Waikanae Music Society, Wanaka Concert Society Inc, Chamber Music Wanganui, Warkworth Music Society, Wellington Chamber Music Trust, Whakatane Music Society, Whangarei Music Society. Trio Amistad (flute/sax/guitar) Tauranga Gisborne 17 May 19 May Andrew Beer & Sarah Watkins (violin/piano) Wellington 21 June Te Kōkī Trio (piano trio) Rotorua Tauranga Motueka Blenheim Rangiora Waikanae Whangarei Wellington Wanganui 13 June 14 June 18 June 19 June 20 June 28 June 1 July 6 September 9 October Level, 75 Ghuznee Street PO Box 6, Wellington CONCERT (266 2 ) info@chambermusic.co.nz /ChamberMusicNZ Chamber Music New Zealand 2 No part of this programme may be reproduced without the prior permission of Chamber Music New Zealand.

11 Thank you! A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS CORE FUNDER CORE PARTNER NATIONAL PARTNERS CAROLYN & PETER DIESSL TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS WINTON AND MARGARET BEAR CHARITABLE TRUST MARIE VANDEWART TRUST PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS ACCOMMODATION Crowne Plaza Auckland, Nice Hotel New Plymouth, County Hotel Napier, Intercontinental Wellington, Kelvin Hotel Invercargill

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