Good on you if you spent the last few days barracking for the All Blacks or pulling your weight in the national political scrummaging that takes place every three years. But following those passions creates losers as well as winners.
It’s far safer to focus on an alternative where there are only winners — and just as much passion.
The third annual At the World’s Edge classical music festival ended its week-long performing tour of the Queenstown Lakes’ district in Wanaka at the weekend.
Taking chamber music to the masses is no small feat, yet it has been seamlessly accomplished by co-directors and violinists Justine Cormack and Benjamin Baker and their assembled company of international and local musicians.
Following shows in Queenstown, Bannockburn and Cromwell, Wanaka’s first show was Homeland, three string-quartet compositions exploring national and personal identity.
Bohemian-born Antonin Dvorak’s 1876 String quartet No 8 in E major opened with Vesa-Matti Leppanen and Marike Kruup on violin, Tobias Breider on viola and Rolf Gjelsten on cello — a bright and lyrical early work building from passionate and playful via contemplation to an assured and joyous conclusion.
For a change of style and century, Tan Dun’s 1986 work Eight Colours was written just after his move from Beijing to New York.
Justine Cormack replaced Leppanen on violin for this innovative investigation of cultures, full of surprises and fun. The quartet controlled this quirky work of calculated cleverness beautifully — my pick of the night.
For the final piece, Benjamin Baker joined Cormack on violins, with Jordan Bak on viola and Alice Neary on cello for Bedrich Smetana’s reflective From my Life, a personal journey from a composer hailed as the father of Czech national music.
Emotions were to the fore, not just from Smetana’s switches from youthful exuberance to ageing and mournful sadness, but from seeing the total connection with the music so evident on the faces of Bak and Neary — two younger performers perfectly in tune with their passion. Wonderful and memorable.
— Review by Nigel Zega
