CLiK the ensemble. John Chen (piano) Natalie Lin (violin) Edward King (cello)

Transcription

1 CLiK the ensemble John Chen (piano) Natalie Lin (violin) Edward King (cello)

2 2 Chamber Music New Zealand Touring NZ 15 Sep - 8 Oct 2015 A sublime musical journey through time INSPIRED BY BACH MICHAEL HOUSTOUN Bach Ross Harris Lilburn Rachmaninov Shostakovich Liszt For ticketing information go to chambermusic.co.nz/houstoun 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 Proud supporters of this tour

3 Kia ora CLik the ensemble 1 Chamber Music New Zealand s 2015 season centres on the 50th Jubilee of the NZCT Chamber Music Contest. This, indeed, is worth celebrating. Last month, we toured the Turnovsky Jubilee Ensemble, a large ensemble that, as its leader Wilma Smith pointed out, included members of winning groups from every decade of the Contest s history. CLiK gives us a different kind of group: three young friends who are all 21st century winners. In the years following the Contest, John, Natalie and Edward have all triumphed in international competitions. There can be no doubt that the NZCT Chamber Music Contest has been a key element in helping generations of musicians hone their technical, ensemble and interpretative capacity. It has also helped build a wider group of discerning audiences (people with first-hand experience of the satisfaction and thrill of being on stage giving everything they ve got for the pleasure of others). The CLiK tour is supported by the Deane Endowment Trust. Sir Roderick and Lady Deane have been generous supporters of Chamber Music New Zealand projects for many years. We appreciate that enormously. The Eastern & Central Community Trust have helped us present CLiK in Napier and Palmerston North. While on the subject of support, I strongly commend to you our Jubilee Appeal (details of which appear later in this programme book). If you share my wish to see the Chamber Music Contest flourish for another fifty years, if you would like to help us in our mission to foster and present the very best New Zealand musicians, and if you would like to help us bring top-flight international ensembles to Aotearoa, please join me in making a donation to Chamber Music New Zealand. Peter Walls Chief Executive, Chamber Music New Zealand 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.

4 2 Chamber Music New Zealand Message from Deane Endowment Trust Chamber Music New Zealand s celebration of 50 years of the Chamber Music Contest is exciting in its own right. However, to celebrate young musicians and for us to hear them perform has been one of the great strengths of the CMNZ programme. One of my favourite objectives of the Deane Endowment Trust is to promote the talents of young musicians. So we are delighted to be able to support this concert series being performed by the three outstanding young musicians you are going to be listening to tonight. John s fans love the way he comes back to New Zealand so regularly and impresses audiences from Waikanae to Auckland with his talent. Natalie, as you know, was the Audience Favourite at the Michael Hill Competition and as we believe in the wisdom of crowds you will know tonight why her ability was recognised in this way. We heard Edward perform in the 2014 Australian Cello Awards and I know you are going to be captivated by his performance. I hope you will find this a special night to remember in this year of memory and celebration for CMNZ. We are very pleased to sponsor the tour of these three gifted musicians. The Trust would like to acknowledge the vast contribution of Euan Murdoch who has supported such a wide range of musical activities, helped young people to develop their talents, and created opportunities for audiences to appreciate their musicianship. We are also delighted that Peter Walls is now leading CMNZ and working so closely with its supporters. We are fortunate indeed to have such talent devoted to continuing the mission of Chamber Music New Zealand. Gillian Deane, Chair, Deane Endowment Trust

5 CLik the ensemble 3 CLik the ensemble Programme Enescu Prélude et Fugue Page 7 Britten Suite for violin and piano Opus 6 Page 8 Farr Shadow of the Hawk Page 9 Interval Schubert Piano Trio No 1 in B flat D898 Page 10 Hamilton 18 August New Plymouth 19 August Wellington 22 August Christchurch 27 August Dunedin 29 August In association with the Taranaki International Arts Festival In association with the Christchurch Arts Festival The Wellington concert is being recorded for broadcast by Radio NZ Concert

6 4 Chamber Music New Zealand CLik the ensemble Three of our brightest young musical stars return to share their love of chamber music with New Zealand audiences. Each of them gained their early performing experience through the NZCT Chamber Music Contest, with John Chen being part of the winning group in 2001, and Natalie Lin and Edward King in Since then, they have all studied and begun their careers overseas. John Chen (piano) In 2004 John Chen became the youngest ever winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition, also scooping up the chamber music prize. The previous year he won the Lev Vlassenko Australasian Piano Competition, and the following year graduated from the University of Auckland, where he studied with Rae de Lisle. His Saguaro Piano Trio, which has toured for Chamber Music New Zealand, won the Hamburg International Chamber Music Competition in 2009.He is now based in Hamburg, where he teaches chamber music at the Hamburg Musikhochschule, and has also been teaching in Zambia. His discography includes solo piano works by Dutilleux, Debussy and Ravel, and duos by Beethoven and Schubert with the cellist Niklas Schmidt.

7 CLik the ensemble 5 Natalie Lin (violin) Natalie Lin is the only New Zealander in the last decade to be a prizewinner at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, where she also gained the Audience Choice Award in the 2013 competition. During her studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with violin pedagogue Paul Kantor, she worked as his teaching assistant at the Institute and at the Aspen Music Festival. She is currently studying for a Doctorate and teaching at Rice University. In 2013 she was selected as the Concertmaster of the Britten-Pears Orchestra in Britain, and she now leads the chamber ensemble Kinetic in conductorless performances in Houston. She has recently toured New Zealand as part of the Turnovsky Jubilee Ensemble. Edward King (cello) Auckland-born Edward King studied the cello from the age of three with Sally-Anne Brown, then with James Tennant at the University of Waikato, where he was a Sir Edmund Hillary Scholar. After graduation he furthered his studies at the Leopold Mozart Centre in Augsburg with Julius Berger, and is now studying with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. In 2009 his Leonari Trio won the ROSL Arts/Pettman International Scholarship and the following year the group toured Britain. He has been a prizewinner at European events such as the Lutoslawski International Cello Competition, and in 2014 was a finalist in the Australian Cello Awards.

8 6 Chamber Music New Zealand MAKE A DIFFERENCE For the young musicians in Eight Minus One, winning the Nelson District Round of the NZCT Chamber Music Contest was a euphoric moment. With your generous support, we can continue to provide these inspiring and memorable opportunities for young people in communities across New Zealand. Photo Credit: Robert Petch To donate to our Chamber Music Contest 50th Jubilee Appeal visit: chambermusic.co.nz/support-us or phone Kirsten Mason on

9 CLik the ensemble 7 George Enescu Born Liveni Vîrnav (now George Enescu) 19 August 1881 Died Paris, 4 May 1955 Prélude et Fugue As Romania s most famous musician, George Enescu was honoured by his homeland with the naming of a Conservatory during his lifetime, and the re-naming of his birthplace after he died. During the early years of the 20th century, he was considered one of the world s great violinists, and also a noted composer and leading conductor. A child prodigy, he was given special dispensation at the age of seven to enter the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied violin, piano and composition. In 1895 he moved to the Paris Conservatoire, where his composition teachers included Massenet and Fauré. After graduating at the top of his violin class, Enescu had an international career as a soloist and chamber musician, but said that his ultimate passion was for composition. He later recalled: I was drunk with music and not with giving performance on an instrument. I dreamt only about composing, composing, and again composing. Prélude et Fugue for piano was written in 1903, after his graduation and during the time when he was writing some of his most well-known compositions. A rocking figuration combines with a near-static bass part to create a somewhat hypnotic effect in the gentle Prélude. After rising to a passionate central section the music slips back to the original ethereal mood and ends with an extraordinary suspended cadence. The dreamy atmosphere continues in the Fugue, and although its initial subject seems fragmented, the counterpoint develops in a singing, romantic style that grows in emotional depth.

10 8 Chamber Music New Zealand Benjamin Britten Born Lowestoft, 22 November 1913 Died Aldeburgh, 4 December 1976 Suite for violin and piano Opus 6 Introduction. Andante maestoso March. Allegro alla marcia Moto perpetuo. Allegro molto e con fuoco Lullaby. Lento tranquillo Waltz. Alla valse: Vivace e rubato By the time he began formal composition lessons at the age of fourteen, Britten had been composing for about a decade and had written more than 100 works, including symphonies and songs. In 1930 he entered the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with John Ireland and piano with Arthur Benjamin. In his final year, he won a scholarship to travel in Europe, and hoped to study with Alban Berg, whose Lyric Suite had caught his imagination. However, the College persuaded Britten s parents that Berg was not a good influence, and instead he travelled around Switzerland, Austria and Germany in 1934, attending concerts and operas and meeting influential musical people. While he was in Vienna, he began writing the Suite for violin and piano, which he finished the following year when back in London. He had found a job writing music and producing soundscapes for a documentary film company, and through that met the poet Auden. During the following decade the two men collaborated on several works, most notably the opera Paul Bunyan. The first performance of the Suite was given in March 1936 by Britten with his violinist friend Antonio Brosa, and was broadcast by the BBC. Shortly afterwards, the piece was chosen for the International Society for Contemporary Music festival in Barcelona. The Suite is a light-hearted work, though Britten was clearly experimenting with serious compositional techniques such as the use of a four-note motto phrase throughout. Theatrical gestures dominate the very short Introduction, which is followed by an off-beat March that would, however, be difficult to march to. It has an ironic edge, and is reminiscent of the music of Stravinsky, which Britten had studied closely. The Moto perpetuo is a rather breathless romp, notable for its light texture, and the Lullaby returns to a more traditional harmonic style. The Suite concludes with an energetic Waltz in which Britten pays homage to the Viennese sound he had been surrounded by while writing it, albeit with an added element of amused and perhaps very English - scrutiny.

11 CLik the ensemble 9 Gareth Farr Born Wellington, 29 February 1968 Shadow of the Hawk Gareth Farr studied composition and percussion at Auckland University and Victoria University, then undertook postgraduate study with Samuel Adler and Christopher Rouse at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. In 1993 he was Chamber Music New Zealand s Composer-in-residence, and in 2007 was Composer-in-residence for the Auckland Philharmonia. He was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2006 and named as an Arts Laureate in His music has been included in high profile events such as the NZ International Festival of Arts, the 50th anniversary concert of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the opening of the Museum of NZ Te Papa Tongarewa, the NZSO concerts at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and the Auckland Festival. In addition to works for chamber ensembles and orchestra, Gareth Farr has written for the theatre, television and dance, including several shows for the Capital E National Theatre for Children, and the World of Wearable Art. Performers of his works include percussionist Evelyn Glennie, Michael Houstoun, the New Zealand String Quartet, Douglas Wright s ballet company and the percussion ensemble Strike, of which he was a member for many years. Gareth Farr wrote Shadow of the Hawk in 1997 as a commission for James Tennant and Katherine Austin. The composer writes: The shadow of the hawk rises and falls as the landscape gently undulates beneath it. One moment it is indistinct and unfocussed, the next it snaps into clear definition as the ground rises. A rocky outcrop thrusts up towards the sky - the shadow is suddenly crystal-clear. Slowly it slides away again as the hills recede, and the hawk ascends soundlessly back into the sky. This is an exciting and dramatic work requiring performers with considerable stamina, as both instruments are involved for most of the time. There are many passages of tightly motoric unison playing, but these are contrasted with more expansive and lyrical sections.

12 10 Chamber Music New Zealand Franz Schubert Born Vienna, 31 January 1797 Died Vienna, 19 November 1828 Piano Trio No 1 in B flat D898 Allegro moderato Andante un poco mosso Scherzo: Allegro Rondo: Allegro vivace - Presto Like Mozart and Haydn before him, Schubert was born into a musical household where proficiency on a number of instruments was taken for granted. He played in the family string quartet alongside his father and elder brothers, and records from the Imperial College in Vienna (to which Schubert won a scholarship) show that he received tuition on both violin and piano. However, unlike his predecessors, he was not a virtuoso performer and therefore struggled to gain public exposure for his compositions. During his lifetime Schubert was regarded primarily as a songwriter and composer of dances and marches for the piano, since these were the pieces that the music-buying public sought. Few of his other compositions (which included string quartets, piano trios, symphonies, operas and masses) were published in his lifetime, and he earned little money from them. He was highly regarded in musical circles, however, and in 1826 was elected to membership of the Philharmonic Society, an exclusive group that valued Schubert s works highly. From 1821 his supporters also began a holding series of Schubertiade evenings at private houses, and these were an important venue for Schubert to present his own compositions at a time when public concerts were rare. Early in 1823 Schubert fell ill with what turned out to be syphilis, and the last six years of his life were marked by bouts of illness, but also a renewed sense of purpose in his work. Many of his

13 CLik the ensemble 11 most renowned chamber works, such as the String Quintet in C, the Death and the Maiden Quartet, and the two Piano Trios were written in this period. His first Piano Trio, in B flat, was probably written late in 1827, and performed a few months later by leading Viennese musicians including violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, whose string quartet had premiered many of Beethoven s Quartets. The Trio captures the essence of Schubert s late style. It opens with an expansive theme that is contrasted with the lyrical second theme, introduced by the cello. This melody is derived from a song he had written two years earlier, whose text reads: Shatter all my happiness, take away everything I possess at once. Leave me only my zither, and I shall be merry and rich. The unsettled development section is signalled by a minor key version of the first theme, but the movement returns to its original sunny mood for the recapitulation. A cello melody again features in the slow movement, which also has a darker middle section, reminiscent of Gypsy music, and the third movement has the folk dance style of an energetic Austrian Ländler, with a more relaxed Viennese waltz providing the inspiration for the central Trio. The final movement is a sonata-rondo, and the main theme again draws on the tune of an earlier song, this time with the optimistic text: Let us, in the bright May morning, take delight in the brief life of the flower, before its fragrance disappears.

14 12 Chamber Music New Zealand Board Chair, Roger King, Paul Baines, Gretchen La Roche, Sarah Sinclair, Lloyd Williams, Vanessa Van den Broek Staff Chief Executive, Peter Walls Development Manager, Kirsten Mason Development Executive, Gemma Robinson Artistic Manager, Catherine Gibson Education and Outreach Coordinator, Sue Jane Operations Coordinator, Rachel Hardie Programme Writer, Jane Dawson Artistic Assistant, Jack Hobbs Marketing Manager, Shelley Davis Programme Writer, Jane Dawson Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Hannah Darroch Ticketing & Database Coordinator, Laurel Bruce Design & Print Coordinator, Darcy Woods Publicist, Sally Woodfield Office Administrator, Becky Holmes Regional Concerts & Other Events Takiri Ensemble (vocal) Kaitaia 23 August Wanaka 25 August Motueka 27 August Waikanae 30 August Wanganui 1 September Rotorua 3 September Whakatane 6 September NZ Guitar Quartet Warkworth 6 September Gisborne 8 September Blenheim 11 September Upper Hutt 14 September Te Koki Trio (piano trio) Wellington 6 September 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, t.b.c.; 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. Level 4, 75 Ghuznee Street PO Box 6238, Wellington 0800 CONCERT ( ) admin@chambermusic.co.nz /ChamberMusicNZ Chamber Music New Zealand 2015 No part of this programme may be reproduced without the prior permission of Chamber Music New Zealand.

15 Thank you! A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS CORE FUNDER CORE PARTNER CLik the ensemble 13 NATIONAL PARTNERS CAROLYN & PETER DIESSL TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS WINTON AND MARGARET BEAR CHARITABLE TRUST MARIE VANDEWART TRUST MARIAN LOUISE HOLT TRUST PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS ACCOMMODATION Crowne Plaza Auckland, Nice Hotel New Plymouth, County Hotel Napier, Intercontinental Wellington, Kelvin Hotel Invercargill

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