Triple Treat for Auckland Audiences

MEDIA RELEASE
July 24, 2007

Triple Treat for Auckland Audiences

FARR HORIZONS – APN News & Media Premier Series, Concert 10
Thursday 16 August, 8pm, Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGE

HAPPY HOUR –Wednesday 15 August, 6.30pm, Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGE

The adage ‘good things come in threes’ will be put into practice at the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s Farr Horizons concert at the Auckland Town Hall on Thursday 16 August.

The concert will see three of the New Zealand classical music community’s favourite practitioners – the NZTrio ensemble, composer Gareth Farr and conductor Marc Taddei – come together to perform the Auckland premiere of Farr’s Triple Concerto.

The Triple Concerto is the centrepiece in a programme of (you guessed it) three works. The concert opens with Three Places in New England by American composer Charles Ives and will close with the popular Romeo & Juliet Suite by Prokofiev.

Farr’s Triple Concerto was commissioned by the NZTrio, which is Justine Cormack (violin), Sarah Watkins (piano) and Ashley Brown (cello). The trio performed the world premiere of the work with the Christchurch Symphony and Marc Taddei in 2005 where it was met with enthusiastic stamps and whistles from the audience.

Farr, who is the APO’s Composer-in-Residence for 2007, is best known for his percussion-based compositions. The Triple Concerto displays a more subtle and lyrical side to his work and also presents a rare occasion for audiences to see a chamber ensemble, that usually performs on its own, onstage with an orchestra and conductor.

As he was writing the piece, Farr says he came to understand why there are so few triple concertos in the orchestral repertoire: “With the piano taking the harmony, the violin the melody, and the cello taking the counter-melody, there is very little left for the orchestra to do!”

He solved this problem in a number of ways: “I let the trio play as if it was chamber music, there are tutti passages where the trio plays in balance with the orchestra, and then there are orchestral passages where the trio drops out and the orchestra goes wild!”

Farr says the Triple Concerto openly displays his passion for the music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich so it is apt that it is alongside one of Prokofiev’s best-loved works, the Romeo & Juliet Suite. Taken from his ballet score, Prokofiev did rearrange excerpts into orchestral suites himself but conductors frequently make their own selections, as Marc Taddei has done for this concert.

The concert will be preceded on Wednesday 15 August by the APO’s third free Happy Hour concert for the year at 6.30pm in the Auckland Town Hall. Happy Hour is an informal, narrated one-hour concert that provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the orchestra works with the conductor to prepare for the following night’s performance. This concert will include excerpts from Three Places in New England and Farr’s Triple Concerto.

A special cocktail created by THE EDGE will be available at the Happy Hour concert.

Happy Hour concerts are presented by the APO, Auckland City and THE EDGE with funding from the Lion Foundation. Although free to attend, bookings are required. To book visit www.aucklandphil.co.nz.

Tickets for Farr Horizons (from $12 to $110 plus booking fee) are available from Ticketek Ph 09 307 5139, www.ticketek.co.nz.

ENDS

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