In a change of venue this year, the Music Department transported the annual Chamber Music Showcase offsite to St Andrew’s Village in Glendowie to entertain the village residents, friends, families and the wider Saint Kentigern community.

Head of Music, Miss Mary Lin said, ‘We were blessed with the use of their fantastic venue with a brand new grand piano and acoustic fitting to allow the small ensemble of elite musicians to perform in the original ‘salon setting’ that Chamber Music was intended for.’

Sunday’s performance allowed our chamber musicians to present their repertoire before the NZCT Chamber Contest that will take place in June. Our chamber musicians are a small group of talented multi-instrumentalists who are also involved in most of premier large ensembles, so fitting the rehearsals and finding venues to work with specialist tutors can be a challenge!

This year, we have two Saint Kentigern ensembles: Piano Trio ‘ Der Dybbuk Doina’ with Amy Chen on Violin, Brendon Tsoi on Cello, Max Liu on Piano, and a Percussion Piano Quartet, ‘Saint Kentigern Quartet,’ with Sunny Le and Charles Sang on Piano, and Jason Wong and Alex Bian on Percussion. Both groups are playing newly written pieces by renowned NZ composers.

The department has also collaborated with students from other schools to maximise the strength of our elite musicians, developing their musicianship and ensemble skills with the best tutors and masterclass opportunities. They are part of six additional groups who also performed in the showcase  The audience were enchanted by their range of styles and genres from the ‘old school’ Shostakovich to the upbeat jazz vibe of Malcolm Arnold.

We are very grateful to St Andrew’s Village for hosting the event. The collected entry donation was put towards Sistema Aotearoa, the music education charity run by Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra to provide free instruments and lessons to south Auckland schools.

The photographs were taken by senior students Grace Gao and Rory Merrie and senior students Thomas Joyce, Melody Zhuang and Jenny Ji provided superb stage managements and manual labour behind the scenes. Well done to all the students for their collaborative efforts!

Tags

• Music,
• chamber music

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