He may be Australian, but violinist Peter Clark is enthusiastic about representing his homeland’s smaller rival as part of the New Zealand String Quartet.
The newest member of the quartet is on his first NZSQ tour in Australia and about to perform at Dunedin’s Orokonui Ecosanctuary, he tells Rebecca Fox.
It is the dream of most classical string performers to be a member of a major string quartet.
But the positions are notoriously rare, so when Australian violinist Peter Clark heard a violin position was coming up in the New Zealand String Quartet (NZSQ) as Monique Lapins moved on, he put his name forward.
Clark, who had been principal violin of the chamber music Omega Ensemble and previously first violinist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Inspire Quartet, and core member of Melbourne’s Inventi Ensemble, had spent much of his time between New York and Sydney or Melbourne.
‘‘I had been living pretty much out of a suitcase for, goodness, most of my adult life, really.’’
He got the job as second violinist after an intense two-hour audition.
‘‘It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of one, actually. There are lots of orchestral jobs and lots of teaching jobs around the world. But string quartets, you’re one of four voices, one of four people, and there’s a lot of responsibility on you. So it’s actually a real treasure, delight and honour to be now a member of the NZSQ.’’
Moving to New Zealand was not a problem for the Hobart, Tasmania-raised musician, who describes many similarities between there and Wellington.
‘‘It’s wonderful to call New Zealand home and I feel very, very, very excited to be there. And I feel like there are possibilities artistically that you can have in New Zealand you can’t have anywhere else in the world.’’
One of those opportunities he is excited about is his plans, with NZTrio violinist Amalia Hall, to create a New Zealand Chamber Orchestra - something the country does not have.
‘‘When I came to New Zealand, I was quite sort of shocked that it didn’t have a chamber orchestra. And so I think it could be a very exciting new chapter for the classical music realm, but also collaborating with other artists. So you won’t just hear classical music, you’ll hear all sorts of different artistic collaborations coming together. And to create concerts that really shock and inspire and move and empower and surprise.’’
While it could be a year or two away, he hopes the orchestra, which would have about five first violins, five second violins, three or four violas, cellos and one or two basses, would celebrate the best of the country’s existing symphony orchestras and ensembles, coming together quarterly to perform.
‘‘It is the perfect hybrid between a big symphony orchestra and a string quartet. It’s also very tourable, but the sound and energy you get from a chamber orchestra is really unbelievable and it’s an opportunity, I think, for this country to create something really new.’’
Clark has experience with chamber orchestras in Australia -his first performance in Carnegie Hall in New York was with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, at the age of 20.
He does not believe such an orchestra would compete with existing organisations. Instead it would celebrate their work and enable audiences to see musicians from around the country perform.
‘‘I think its something very exciting, which will only amplify the artistic mission and visions of all of these organisations, and for me, alongside the New Zealand String Quartet.’’
While he is letting this idea percolate, he is busy with his first international tour with the NZSQ alongside founding member violist Gillian Ansell and two guest musicians after the resignation last year of married couple violinist Helene Pohl and cellist Rolf Gjelsten. They are recruiting two permanent members at present which they hope to announce later this year.
The NZSQ has recently been performing at the Warren Chamber Music Festival in Australia.
‘‘It’s wonderful to be representing New Zealand in Australia because I think we could be doing more and more cross-Tasman cultural kind of collaborations and concerts in each other’s countries much more, I think.’’
The quartet also recently collaborated with the New Zealand Dance Company and choreographer Moss Te Ururangi Patterson on 100 winds Taupo Hau Rau and are about to embark on a tour of the south of the South Island.
Clark said a musician’s week was ‘‘not a typical five, two ... you don’t really even know what day it is most of the time, if I’m honest’’.
‘‘It keeps you on your toes and it’s exciting.’’
In Dunedin, they will return to Orokonui Ecosanctuary to perform - last year’s concert there sold out. This year they will play a varied programme, including New Zealand composer Salina Fisher’s Tōrino - echoes on pūtōrino improvisations by Rob Thorne, Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.3 and Edvard Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor, accompanied by Auckland cellist Callum Hall and Christchurch violinist Arna Morton.
‘‘It’s interesting that music like Shostakovich can sound so strikingly relevant and effective. And then after the interval, a wonderful, almost quartet of symphonic proportions, a Grieg G minor quartet, which will just bring the house down. It’s quite one of those big showstopper pieces.’’
Clark plays a 1784 Lorenzo Storioni violin, leant by the Lily Duncan Trust, an instrument he describes as being like another limb and one he does not let out of his sight when travelling.
‘‘They’re basically strapped to us, almost like the Blues Brothers when they handcuff their suitcase of money to their wrists. We do take great care of them. We’re very lucky to have these beautiful instruments that can sound gorgeous. And it’s interesting that we don’t really own an instrument, we’re merely sort of custodians of that instrument, keeping it safe for the next person when we’re all gone.’’
Clark grew up in a musical family, with both his mother and aunt being pianists, but the family’s musical legacy began with his grandmother, who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her services to music education, having taught piano from age 16 to 86.
‘‘So I’m very lucky to have been part of this sort of line of wonderful musicians.’’
He cannot remember how he came to play the violin, but it was his mother’s second instrument.
‘‘I can’t remember a time I didn’t have a violin or didn’t have one in my hands or didn’t consider myself a violinist.’’
But he considers his fate was sealed during secondary school when he and his younger brother, now a viola player in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and two other boys from school who played the cello and violin formed a string quartet.
‘‘We would go busking every Saturday. And we actually, we got so good at busking, we played by memory.’’
After busking they would head to one of the boys’ homes and play tennis and rehearse chamber music.
‘‘And then eat Nutella sandwiches, not quite red wine and beer at those times. Eat Nutella sandwiches, play video games, play tennis and play chamber music after busking and making our tax-free money in the morning.’’
All four are now professional musicians playing around the world.
While it was an idyllic way to grow up, his older brother is severely disabled and now lives in supported living. He also plays the violin.
‘‘But he did a lot for William and I in terms of giving us perspective and inspired in myself a lot of the outreach and programmes and engagement work that I’ve done across the world in New York and Australia, regional Australia especially.’’
Clark, who has a MBA in Arts Innovation, firmly believes that music can be used to bring people together and bring meaning to people’s lives. He ran a programme for a string quartet through the Australian Chamber Orchestra at the Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital.
‘‘We had to go there a lot growing up for our older brother, you know, two or three times a year from Hobart. These young kids at the hospital, which I’d been one of, a sibling of a sick kid, and often sort of sitting around, and to bring something like a string quartet and bring music and for sick kids who couldn’t come to the music, we brought it to them.’’
It is a side of his career that he puts equal importance on alongside his own performing career.
‘‘So I’m always also interested alongside sort of high art music, kind of concert giving, the way music can be used to build community and bring meaning to all different stakeholders and individuals in our world.’’
He believes musicians can learn so much from the people they come into contact with in their careers.
‘‘I think to see how much music can mean, it empowers young people, you know, the beautiful smiles on their faces and the sort of relief and the sort of suspension of their suffering just for a short while is really powerful and meaningful. It’s quite a beautiful thing.
‘‘That certainly inspires us to keep doing more.’’
That is important in an increasingly technological world, as is educating and inspiring the next generation of musicians through education programmes.
‘‘It’s important we keep these acoustic art forms and manual ways of doing things, just keeping them really strong. Because I think human beings, I think Covid showed us and taught us, that we actually crave human connection and we want to be at live concerts and we want to experience something real. I mean, AI can be wonderful and it’s going to help us a lot in our world, but I think music’s always helped us and will continue to.’’
To see:
New Zealand String Quartet, Orokonui Ecosanctuary, May 10
The Lodge, Arrowtown Lifestyle Village, May 11
