Top musicians for hospice fundraiser

World-class musicians (from left) cellist Bartholomew LaFollette, violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist Tom Poster will perform at First Church, Dunedin, next Friday in a fundraising event organised by the Otago Community Hospice. Photo supplied.
World-class musicians (from left) cellist Bartholomew LaFollette, violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist Tom Poster will perform at First Church, Dunedin, next Friday in a fundraising event organised by the Otago Community Hospice. Photo supplied.
Young musicians from the United Kingdom will perform at Dunedin's First Church next Friday as part of an Otago Community Hospice fundraiser.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen, who performs on a 1721 Stradivarius has been described by The Times as a violinist ''who held us rapt in daring and undaunted performances'' and The Guardian as a performer of ''fearless intensity''.

Waley-Cohen has performed as a soloist with orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic, London Chamber Orchestra, and in venues across the UK and Europe, including the Queen Elizabeth and Barbican halls in London.

It is said she fell in love with her instrument at the age of 2. She still plays her Stradivarius ''six or seven hours a day''.

Performing with her is pianist Tom Poster and cellist Bartholomew LaFollette. In 2013, LaFollette won the inaugural Art's Club and Decca Records' Classical Music Awards, being identified as ''the most exciting young classical musician in Britain''.

He performs on a Benjamin Banks jun cello made in 1785.

Royal Over-seas League (ROSL) director of arts Roderick Lakin MBE and ROSL New Zealand director Lyn Milne are travelling with the musicians.

The trios to be performed are the Beethoven Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op97 Archduke and Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No 2 in C Min, Op66.

As well as performing concerts throughout New Zealand, the trio will adjudicate the 9th annual Pettman/ROSL Arts Chamber Music Scholarship for Young NZ Musicians at Waikato University this weekend.

Previous ROSL Dunedin-based prize winners and scholars have included contralto Patricia Payne (1969), bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu (2000) and Helen Bevin (viola), who won a Pettman/ROSL Arts International Scholarship in 2008.

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