2017 Season Announced: Music Up Close

Chamber Music New Zealand Announces 2017 Season:
Music Up Close

Superstars of early music, a Grammy Award winning pianist, the greatest string quartet in the world, and a vibrant wind ensemble are just a few of the highlights in Chamber Music New Zealand’s 2017 Kaleidoscopes Concert Season.

Sub-titled ‘Music Up Close’, the full programme for the 2017 was announced this week and features eight concerts touring to 11 centres around New Zealand.

CMNZ chief executive Peter Walls said the 2017 season offers excellence and intimacy. “That’s the thing about chamber music – every musician adds a unique musical and human element to the performance. In 2017 we’ve engaged artists and ensembles of astounding quality with a brilliant array of concerts spanning early music to jazz and ranging from soloists to groups of up to 20 musicians.”

The season opens in March with the first ever New Zealand tour by French baroque/jazz cross-over ensemble L’Arpeggiata.

Considered superstars of early music, the ensemble of 10 musicians will perform a programme featuring Purcell spiced up with jazz improvisation. The tour opens with a concert as part of Auckland Arts Festival and tours to Napier, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

New Zealand-based Ensemble Paladino perform three concerts during March and April in Palmerston North, Timaru and Invercargill. This grouping of strings, wind and keyboard players is known for their innovative repertoire choices.

In May, Grammy Award winning British pianist Kathryn Stott is paired with the New Zealand String Quartet to perform some of the masterpieces of the piano quintet repertoire from Dvořák and César Franck, along with works from New Zealand composers Gillian Whitehead and John Psathas.

Kathryn and the NZSQ perform together in seven centres and Kathryn performs solo concerts in Napier and New Plymouth.

A major highlight of the 2017 season, Masaaki Suzuki and Juilliard415 perform 10 concerts in May and June. Considered the greatest living interpreter of Bach’s music, Masaaki Suzuki will direct an ensemble of brilliant young musicians studying at the prestigious Juilliard School.

During Queen’s Birthday Weekend the group will hold a three-day residency programme in Nelson for singers and baroque instrumentalists. Observers are invited to attend selected events.

Haydn and Mozart classical works feature in the July tour of five centres by Belgian ensemble Kuijken Quartet, with members of La Petite Bande. The ensemble, which includes acclaimed violinist Sigiswald Kuijken with his wife Marleen Thiers and their daughter Sara Kuijken, are musicians who have lived and breathed 18th century repertoire for decades.

The tour is a rare opportunity to also hear Sigiswald Kuijken perform Bach solo sonatas for violin in Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington.

“Sigiswald is internationally recognised for his performance of Bach and these solo recitals will be inspirational, intimate and unique experiences,” Mr Walls said.

Considered one of the greatest string quartets in the world, Hungary’s Takács Quartet returns to New Zealand for two concerts only in August in Auckland and Wellington performing Haydn and Dvořák, and Anthony Ritchie’s Whakatipua.

In August and September pianist Michael Houstoun and Bulgarian violinist Bella Hristova reunite for a special programme of Beethoven Sonata concerts featuring three mini-festivals performing all the Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch with single concerts in Havelock North, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Nelson and Dunedin. Bella is well-known to New Zealand audiences – she won the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2007 and toured New Zealand with Michael in 2008.

“This is sublime Beethoven,” Mr Walls said. “The Beethoven Sonatas represent possibly the most important body of work for the violin and piano.”

Closing the 2017 season is a 10-centre tour by the United States young Grammy-nominated wind quintetImani Winds performing a programme reflecting their African and Latin American roots and including the fantasy world of Scheherazade.

As part of the tour Imani Winds will present their educational concert programmes ‘Music is Fun’ and Musical Journey Around The World at family-friendly concerts in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin.

In releasing its 2017 programme, Chamber Music New Zealand also announced tailored pricing packages for seniors, young audiences and families. Generation You offers ‘pay your age’ tickets for under 35-year-olds, $10 Student Rush tickets; concession rates for those aged 65 years or more, and a new ‘Babysitting Club’ provides two for one tickets for those who need to book a babysitter to come to concerts.

“We know that some people struggle to get along to our concerts and want to do what we can to make it easier,” Mr Walls said.

Subscriber tickets are now on sale for the Chamber Music New Zealand Kaleidoscopes 2017: Music Up Close Concert Season. Concert tickets for L’Arpeggiata go on public sale on Friday 25 November and all concert tickets are on public sale from Friday 17 February 2017. For full details of the season and ticketing options for 2017 visit www.chambermusic.co.nz

Chamber Music New Zealand acknowledges major funding from Creative New Zealand.

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