This is the place to get the latest news on chamber music in New Zealand, read special features on artists, music and events, and find out what the critics have to say about our most recent concert tours.
Sustained applause in a standing ovation erupted as the final notes of Beethoven's last piano sonata - Sonata No 32 in C minor Opus 111- died away under Michael Houstoun's fingers as he completed his prodigious achievement of the performance of all 32 of the Sonatas.
Seemingly only yesterday Michael Houstoun thrilled audiences throughout New Zealand with his stunning performances of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and now, two decades later, Houstoun has returned to these works, considered by many to be at the very heart of piano literature, providing fresh insight and undoubted maturity.
Violin I. Violin II. Viola. Cello. Possibly the best ensemble ever created: sharing in common all the richness of timbre a bow can create upon a string, but also startlingly different, the pitch of each voice able to sing out in complete independence as well as blend seamlessly into the whole.
It was a pleasure to welcome back the Goldner String Quartet from Australia - violinists Dene Olding and Dimity Hall, violist Irina Morozova and cellist Julian Smiles - in the first concert in the Century Theatre after an absence of three years.
A week ago, the Goldner String Quartet cellist, Julian Smiles, extolled the pleasures of exploring Mendelssohn, and the composer's Opus 13 launched the group's concert on Thursday night.
Australia's foremost string quartet joining forces on Friday with one of that country's leading pianists to present a programme including one of the great string quartets - Schubert's Death and the Maiden - along with one of the great piano quintets - Edward Elgar's Piano in A minor.
The Goldner String Quartet is already in the country on its Chamber Music New Zealand tour.
Cellist Julian Smiles is looking forward to crossing Cook Strait and playing in some of our North Island venues, including Napier's just-opened MTG Hawke's Bay.
Stories abounded in this concert, and there was not a lot of levity in any of them. Dark moods, impending death, ghosts, restless seas and depression played major roles. This is the stuff of a cleverly chosen programme.
After the first three concerts in Michael Houstoun's return to Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas, which were held in the dryness of the Ilott Concert Chamber, we enjoyed the fourth in the lovely, open acoustics of the town hall. And how it suited the name sonata in this recital, No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 'Appassionata'.
Based on how popular our Beethoven reCYCLE concerts have been and developments in seeking a suitable venue for our 2014 season, Chamber Music New Zealand has decided to relocate the final three Beethoven reCYCLE concerts from The Grange Theatre at Middleton Grange School.
Christchurch Arts Festival Youth Ambassador Review
The Barocca concert “A Baroque Dawn to Dusk” featured Erin Helyard on Harpsichord, Kamala Bain playing Recorders, Emma Goodbehere playing Cello and Rowena Simpson singing various 17th and 18th Century European Baroque compositions.
This spring pianist Piers Lane is touring the country with the Goldner String Quartet and will be playing two of the finest piano quintets in the repertoire - Elgar's Piano Quintet in A minor and Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor. Piers took some time to play a game of 'complete the sentence' with us, so we could get to know him a little better...
The TSB Showplace in New Plymouth, including the Theatre Royal, where CMNZ holds all of the Kaleidoscopes Concert Season performances will be closed from 2 September 2013 until 1 March 2014 in order to strengthen and upgrade the building to meet the latest National Building Standards for earthquake resilience. This work is the result of the building being i
A full house witnessed double genius in action in last night's Beethoven Recycle 2013 concert presented by Chamber Music New Zealand as part of the Taranaki International Arts Festival.
There was no obligation to stay glued to your seat in silence at a chamber music concert at TSB Theatre Royal yesterday. The audience shouted, clapped, danced, sang along and stomped their feet as trombone quartet BonaNZa and musical director of Wellington Community Choir Julian Raphael performed.
Christchurch Arts Festival Youth Ambassadors Reviews
by Matt
The New Zealand Guitar Quartet revealed itself as one of the treasures of New Zealand Music this afternoon to a full Christchurch Arts Festival Audience.
The Antipodes Trio Rotorua Convention Centre The Antipodes String Trio gave an eloquent and assured performance in the Rotorua Convention Centre's concert chamber on Friday night.
Each year Chamber Music New Zealand bestows on someone the Marie Vandewart Memorial Award in recognition of their outstanding service and commitment to fostering the love of chamber music.
The winners of this year's NZCT Chamber Music Contest are Sollertinsky Trio from Auckland with their performance of Piano Trio No. 2, Mvts 2 and 4 by Shostakovich.
The New Zealand Guitar Quartet chose their best repertoire from arrangements of Bach and Rimsky-Korsakov to guitar star Leo Brouwer and Craig Utting for their performance in Kaitaia on Sunday.
The New Zealand guitar quartet returned to Whangarei for the first performance of their 2013 tour. They delivered a superb concert dazzling with virtuosity and musicianship.
Science is in vogue, if Warwick Grady's experience is anything to go by.
The Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School science teacher was impressed when he received 55 applications from pupils to give up an evening and a morning of their school holidays and in school uniform.
The early Greek philosopher-mathematician Pythagoras is credited with the concept of music of the spheres, an idea that endured down the ages and even helped the revolutionary 17th century German astronomer Johannes Kepler formulate his laws of planetary motion.
Einstein's Universe, presented by Chamber Music New Zealand and the Royal Society of New Zealand on Wednesday evening, was a rare opportunity to be inspired by the worlds of physics and music side by side.
This was a very beguiling concert. Four purists delighting in the music of a bygone era – the early 18th century in France and Italy – and playing on original instruments.
Some in the audience had been expertly primed in Brian Foster's early evening lecture, but Chamber Music New Zealand's Einstein's Universe concert on Monday night was a stimulating experience in itself, regardless of any connections there may have been with the man who gave us the Theory of Relativity.
The compositions of musical greats interwoven with tales of the life and legacy of one of the world's most influential scientists make for a fascinating lecture on the 20th-century physicist Albert Einstein.
By Shelby Maples, CMNZ Hamilton Social Media Ambassador
Monday nights “ Einstein’s Universe” concert in Hamilton displayed a wide variety of ensemble combinations from violin sonatas, to piano trios and piano quartets.
The concert followed on from a lecture recital presented by Professor Brian Foster on Einstein’s life and work with musical interludes performed by Jack Liebeck.
Heartfelt thanks must go to Chamber Music New Zealand for having taken up Michael Houstoun's suggestion that he again perform the full cycle of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas for which he gained much critical acclaim in 1993.
