Michael Hill International Violin Competition Announces New Triptych Of Beloved Classical Music Events

There’s good news for the classical music sector today as two events initially adapted as COVID pivots will be added to the events calendar permanently, sitting alongside New Zealand’s most prestigious international music competition, the formerly biennial Michael Hill International Violin Competition (MHIVC).

The new Whakatipu Music Festival saw great success in 2021 and 2022 respectively, both in regards to the opportunities offered to young New Zealand musicians and in driving ‘cultural tourism’ to the South Island. It was borne from the need to stimulate the Queenstown economy and to provide a focal point for NZ musicians – a purpose to rehearse and perform – after ongoing months of being locked down. Leading New Zealand musicians Stephen De Pledge and Madeleine Pierard, among others, performed and mentored a cohort of high-performance emerging Kiwi musicians, many of whom were back home due to COVID, instead of studying offshore, as they usually would be.

Extending beyond classical to jazz, singer-songwriting, and taonga puoro in 2022, the Whakatipu Music Festival affords local community musicians and their teachers and leaders a significant platform for performance and professional development opportunities. Its innovative Training Ground programme (paid apprentices) has already shown evidence it is lifting the capability of the region’s events sector.

Planned for 2021 but postponed to February 2022, the Trust also presented the country’s inaugural National String Competition alongside the longstanding, respected Lewis Eady Charitable Trust’s National Piano Competition, positioning the country’s best young string players and pianists together in a high-stakes competition environment.

“When COVID abruptly shuttered the world in 2020, our thoughts immediately went to all the violinists who have competed, collaborated and judged over the last twenty years of The Michael Hill. The pandemic was a boot to the throat of all performing artists, but cruelly, it was the tip top of the profession’s musicians that paid the dearest price. No longer able to travel for concerts, festivals, study, auditions, and competitions, it was the high-performance musicians that have lost critical years,” says Anne Rodda, Executive Director of the MHIVC Trust.

“With New Zealand’s international borders shut, the MHIVC Trust and the Hill family reflected on its 20-year history of success and responded by giving back to the community of Queenstown that was adversely affected with the loss of tourists and to New Zealand musicians whose career paths and livelihoods were devastated,

“The initiatives we developed during this period – the Whakatipu Music Festival, National String Competition, and our growing Instrument Bank* – have been met with huge appreciation, so we are so pleased to have developed a mechanism by which we can continue them all,” Rodda says.

Each event will now happen triennially, respectively, starting with the return of the MHIVC in June 2023, followed by the MHIVC Winner’s Tour and National String Competition in 2024, and then the Whakatipu Music Festival in 2025.

Resourcing this for Aotearoa has been a bold move for the Trust and is made possible through the generous and significant support of the Hill family. To better reflect this commitment and mahi, the MHIVC Trust will be renamed The Hill Family Foundation for Art and Music.

More information on the 2023 Michael Hill International Violin Competition will be released soon.

For more information, please visit www.michaelhillviolincompetition.co.nz

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