Bringing circus and music together has been a long-held dream of conductor Ashley Hopkins after he experienced similar events in the North Island.
Local inquiries led to him finding Circus Space run by Abigail Rose.
Rose trained in multiple circus disciplines in New Zealand before training in Canada and the United States.
Her international experience has continued throughout the southern hemisphere both in performance and teaching.
More recently she has performed at the Glastonbury Performing Arts festival in the United Kingdom, along with other festivals in Barcelona, Ireland and France.
Her specialist disciplines are aerial silks and double trapeze.
She developed Circus Space, based in Alexandra, for children and adults to have the opportunity to experience performing circus.
In this performance, Rose will be joined by four of her teenage students who have been performing aerials for about three years.
Hopkins brings a wealth of musical experience to the conductor’s podium.
He has been Coro’s successful musical director since 2016 and has just entered his fourth year of conducting the Roxburgh Pioneer Energy Brass Band.
Previously he has directed the Auckland Secondary Schools Orchestra and conducted for the North Shore Concert Band.
He has performed clarinet with the Auckland Philharmonia, the NZSO and currently performs with the DSO and OPUS orchestras.
He is having a lot of fun compiling the music for this concert series.
Well-loved classics such as Entrance of the Gladiators, (Fucik), The Greatest Showman (Pasek and Paul), Send in the Clowns (Sondheim arr. Ashley Hopkins), The Teddy Bears Picnic (Bratton), Dance of the Tumblers (Rimsky-Korsakoff, arr. Dackow) , and The Pink Panther (Mancini) will be complemented by some other works such as Capriol Suite (Peter Warlock) and El Relicario (Padilla).
Cirque du Coro
- Cromwell College Auditorium on Saturday, May 3, 7.30pm
- Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall Sunday, May 4, 2.30 pm
