Catherine Bowie – flute
Helen Webby – harp
Peter Scholes – conductor
Auckland Chamber Orchestra
Elena Kats-Chernin – Zoom and Zip
Mozart – Concerto for Flute and Harp, K.299
Tchaikovsky Serenade, op.48, C major
An exciting and enchanting programme of music for chamber orchestra. The Mozart Concerto for flute and harp is a classical favourite and this performance features principal harpist from the Christchurch Symphony and principal flute from the Philharmonia. Zoom and Zip is a high energy piece for strings which "like most of my pieces it draws on memories of having heard something as a child in Russia and this particular piece has some of the typical Russian harmonic and melodic twists" (Elena Kats-Chernin composer)
Sarah Watkins piano, Peter Scholes clarinet, Robert Ashworth viola, Dianna Cochrane violin, Martin Lee oboe, Ben Hoadley bassoon, Carl Wells horn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Quintet for Piano and Winds, K.452
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Kegelstatt Trio, K.498
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Clarinet Quintet, K.581
This is a chance to hear three unique pieces of chamber music by Mozart. The velvet sound of the clarinet combines superbly with the rich sonority of the string quartet. Mozart wrote his Kegelstatt trio while playing skittles.
Alexa Still – flute
Peter Scholes – conductor
Auckland Chamber Orchestra
Anthony Ritchie – The Hanging Bulb
Anthony Ritchie – Underwater Music
Anthony Ritchie – Flute Concerto
Anthony Ritchie – Portrait of Frances Hodgkins
Anthony Ritchie is one of NZ’s most talented and prolific composers. Alexa Still is international recording artist, soloist and teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium. This is an evening of inventive, brilliant and evocative music.
Raymond Hawthorne – director and narrator
Peter Scholes – conductor
Auckland Chamber Orchestra in association with the Auckland Opera Studio
Kristen Darragh as Sesto
Andrew Glover as Tito
Madeleine Pierard as Vitellia
Marlena Devoe as Servilia
Amelia Berry as Annio
James Ioelu as Publio
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – La clemenza di Tito
(Concert performance)
A story of conspiracy, love and death (execution by wild beasts!) and finally the magnanimous Emperor Tito forgives them all. La Clemenza di Tito was Mozart’s last opera and was premiered in Prague in 1791, just three months before the composer’s death. It is set in Rome under the Emperor Tito, and follows an ever increasing web of intrigue, assassination plots and desperate games of love and hate. This performance will be sung in Italian with an English naration between arias and ensembles.
“I want the wretch slain before sunset. You know that he usurps a kingdom given to me by the Gods” Vitellia
Camille Zamora – soprano
Raymond Hawthorne – director
Peter Scholes – conductor
Auckland Chamber Orchestra in association with the Auckland Opera Studio
Francis Poulenc – A selection of chamber Music
Francis Poulenc – La voix humaine
Jean Cocteau created works in almost every medium. His plays are brilliant theatre exploring the human condition. French composer Poulenc used the text of his play “The Human Voice” to write this opera for a single female singer. It is her last phone call to her lover who has just left her. Poulenc’s score is powerful and sumptuous and will be sung by New York based Camille Zamora.
Peter Scholes conductor
Auckland Chamber Orchestra
Christopher Blake – Christ at Whangape
Christopher Blake – Angel at Ahipara
Christopher Blake – Anthem on the Kaipara
Christopher Blake – Night Journey to Pawarenga
The string orchestra is the perfect vehicle for this set of pieces by NZ composer Chris Blake. His inspiration is a set of four Robin Morrison photographs from his book “A Journey”. The composer recreates that journey in musical terms as each piece is a meditation on the landscape and spirituality of each location. The four works are a synthesis of art and music and in the concert the orchestra will perform in front of the Robin Morrison images.
New Zealand Chamber Soloists
Lara Hall – violin
James Tennant – cello
Katherine Austin – piano
Peter Scholes – clarinet
Martin Lodge – speaker
Martin Lodge – Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time: facts and fictions
Olivier Messiaen – Quartet for the End of Time
Messiaen completed his quartet in a prisoner of war camp where it had its first performance. This piece is the great greatest ensemble work of the twentieth century. It speaks of intense spirituality, ecstasy, apocalypse and throughout it Messiaen’s love of bird song.
Ben Hoadley – bassoon
Sarah Watkins – piano
Peter Scholes – clarinet
Auckland Chamber Orchestra
Saint Saens – Sonata for Bassoon and Piano
Edwin Carr – Solo
Ben Hoadley – Sonata
Rossini – Cavatina
Glinka – Trio Pathétique
This is a rare chance to hear the bassoon in recital. Ben Hoadley recently performed the Mozart bassoon concerto with the ACO and here is an opportunity to hear his expressive and virtuosic playing. He will perform music for bassoon and piano and join with clarinettist Peter Scholes in a performance of Glinka’s Trio Pathétique. Auckland born Ben Hoadley is a currently a bassoon tutor at the University of Auckland and the New Zealand School of Music. A busy performer throughout Australasia, he has worked with the NZSO, Stroma, The Queensland Orchestra and the Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras. Previously based in the USA, Ben studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Tanglewood Music Center, also serving as principal bassoonist of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut and as an guest player in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Ben’s interest in performing NZ music has lead composers such as Gillian Whitehead, Eve de Castro-Robinson, John Elmsly, Edwin Carr, Ross Carey and Dylan Lardelli to write for him.
Also a composer, Ben studied with Edwin Carr for many years and subsequently took classes at the Juilliard School in New York with Conrad Cummings and Kendall Briggs. His works, mostly chamber music featuring voice and winds, have been performed in NZ, Australia, the USA and the UK.