A new String Quintet in New Zealand is important news for classical music lovers and Kāpiti Coast audiences will soon have an opportunity to hear them.
The group of players are from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and have got together to explore the extensive quintet repertoire, much of which has had little exposure due to the concentration on smaller groups, trios and quartets. It is an exciting development – Paekākāriki’s Mulled Wine Concert series has been presenting top-class music in Kāpiti for twenty years and organiser Mary Gow says she is happy to be bringing to her home region a group of classical musicians of the highest quality.
The quintet which will appear at the beautiful seafront Memorial Hall in Paekākāriki on Sunday March 22 consists of Jessica Oddie and Simeon Broom (violins) Andrew Joyce and Ken Ichinose (cellos) and Julia Joyce (viola). All are full-time members of the NZSO and will be well known to Wellington regional concert-goers. The group is organised as a “cello quintet”, with doubles of violin and cellos allowing the beautiful tones of the lower- register instruments to come through and play off against the violins and viola.
The group will present Boccherini’s String Quintet and a work by Salina Fisher: “Heal” – this work was commissioned by the Chamber Music New Zealand Trust with support from the Lyons family in memory of Ian Lyons, a Wellington-based cellist and luthier. They will also present the awesome Cello Quintet by Schubert, a work which they feel deserves to be given more prominence than it currently gets. A concert not to be missed, indeed!
