NZTrio

NZ composer Reuben Jelleyman is raising a commission fund for three leading composers from Aotearoa to create works for international soloist Anna Koch to be performed in early 2024 at Auckland Arts Festival and Off Centre Festival, Otautahi. It goes without saying that we're passionate about getting new music commissioned and out into the world so we'd love to see this happen!

They're over half way there but only have a few days left so do what you can to help get some exciting new music performed in Aotearoa and across the globe 🎵🇳🇿

https://www.boosted.org.nz/projects/portal

📣 2024 SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT 📣

Our 2024 series is live! "Triptych" celebrates discovery, curiosity, reflection, and pure joy. Journey through the contrasting musical landscapes and discover worlds filled with expression, profound emotions and rich colour.

Find out more at nztrio.com…

📸: Danny Rood Photography

Some exciting news - we have two summer concerts planned for early next year! This will be your last chance to hear Somi play with the trio for a wee while because she is expecting a new addition to her whānau in March. We're all so excited for Somi and her husband as they await their newest family member 🥰

We will be joined by a very special guest pianist for our first concert series of 2024 in May - you'll find out more soon...

https://nztrio.com/summer-series-groove-cafe/

And just like that, our epic year has come to a close. We ended the year with a banger last night - thank you all for your ongoing love and support, we wouldn’t be here without you ❤️🌹🎉

The stage is set for our final concert of 2023!!! 🥳 thank you to all the wonderful people who’ve come along to our concerts this year and to everyone who’s helped makes them possible ❤️

Our concerts in Tairāwhiti & Pōneke have been pretty special… We’re having so much fun with our ‘Dumky’ Homeland 3 programme! Two more shows left, tomorrow in Whangārei & Sunday in our hometown Tāmaki Makaurau ❤️‍🔥

🍂🍹 We'll be serving up some smooth, spicy, and fresh flavours at our Homeland 3 concert at the Auckland Town Hall's Concert Chamber - and we're not just talking about our playing!

You'll be able to get yourself a glass of this refreshing Northern-Hemisphere-autumnal cocktail, specially created for us by soprano and spirit connoisseur Claire Filer. Combining smooth American bourbon with rich, bitter and vivacious Irish Guinness, European spiced walnuts and fresh, tart New Zealand apples, it is finished with a summery splash of fiery sparkling ginger. Equally energising and comfortingly nostalgic, traditional flavours combine in a contemporary arrangement. 🥃🍎

And we've shared the recipe to this tasty cocktail so you can even make yourself one in the comfort of your own home.

60ml bourbon
15ml Guinness syrup
120ml fresh cloudy apple juice
Few dashes Fee Brothers Black Walnut Bitters
Splash of ginger beer

Shake the first 4 ingredients with ice, serve in an ice-filled tumbler, and top up with a splash of ginger beer.

And for the Guinness syrup:
Equal parts Guinness and demerara sugar
Bring to a boil, stir constantly, then simmer for around 10min until you reach your preferred consistency. 🍯🌟

🎶🌟 Our Listening Notes offer you a little taster of the flavours that await you in "Homeland Three: Dumky".

🗓️ Here's the lineup of the remaining performances:
22 November: Lawson Field Theatre, Gisborne
23 November: Public Trust Hall, Wellington
25 November: The Old Library, Whangārei
26 November: Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall

🎟️ Click the link below to grab your tickets:
https://nztrio.com

🎃 Happy Halloween, dear music ghouls! While we're conjuring enchanting melodies, we hope you're having a spooktacular time. 🎶👻

💥 We’re off to Tauranga Arts Festival on Sunday with Finn Andrews from The Veils for a 1-night only show at Baycourt Community and Arts Centre! Don’t miss out on an intimate evening of music-making featuring songs from both The Veils & Finn's solo back catalogue, including as yet unreleased new material, masterfully arranged by Victoria Kelly Composer 🎤💋

📻🎵 Tune in at 4pm today to RNZ Concert's Three to Seven with Bryan Crump to hear brilliant NZ composer Ross Harris sharing insights into his music and discussing his new commission for NZTrio, "Prendre ses rêves pour des réalités"

This new work will be part of our "Homeland Three" concerts Nelson, Auckland, Gisborne, Wellington, and Whangārei in November 🎹🎻

Happy to be reunited with our colleagues for our ‘Force of Nature’ show at Nelson Arts Festival! A fleeting trip to Whakatū presenting incredible music of Aotearoa alongside some pretty special musicians 🌱 🎶 🐦

🌊🌿🎵 Force of Nature premiered to a sold-out audience at the Auckland Arts Festival and now we’ll be at the Nelson Arts Festival to share this gorgeous evening of chamber music and taonga pūoro. Celebrating 100 years of conservation work by Forest & Bird, this concert reminds us all of the precious beauty of our whenua, moana, flora and fauna. 💚

🎟 Get your tickets here: https://bit.ly/3tzP83q

📅 Monday, October 23, 5pm
🏛️ Nelson Centre of Musical Arts

Thank you to PACT for making this project possible!
📸 Andi Crown Photography / Auckland Arts Festival 2023

✨ Composition Competition 2023: Trip the Light Fantastic! ✨

We are buzzing from the burgeoning talent of these emerging composers from all around Aotearoa. Last night was a wonderful celebration of the six selected compositions. Bravi tutti! 👏🏻

🌆 Find out Somi's favourite places in Auckland ✨ From the serenity of the Waitākare ranges to a hidden taste of Provence on the North Shore, you'll find a wealth of inspiration for your next adventure!

Pianist Somi Kim’s favourite places in the city Every week we ask a well-known Aucklander for their favourite spots in the city.

Two triple concerti in one evening… What a night! Thank you Whakatū for having us, we’ve had a tremendous time making music with the Nelson Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Donaldson. Can’t wait to be back in a couple of weeks for the Nelson Arts Festival & Homeland 3! ❤️‍🔥🎶

✈️ On our way to Whakatū (Nelson) for a one-night only performance of triple concerti by Beethoven & Gareth Farr on Saturday with Nelson Symphony Orchestra! 🎶💥

We're thrilled to invite you to a concert featuring the winning entries of the 2023 NZTrio Composing Competition! 🎵🏆

📅 Winners' Gala Concert 5pm, October 8th
📍 Music Theatre, School of Music, University of Auckland

This evening promises to be truly special as we not only showcase the extraordinary young talent that Aotearoa has to offer but also unveil a brand new piece from our guest composer, David Mason. Thank you to guest judge, Samuel Holloway for working with the trio to choose the winners:

Cameron Monteath
Nicholas Denton Protsack
Lucy Po***ck
Hanzhong Kang
Sebastián Rodríguez Bonil
Bjorn Arntsen

Stoked with this glowing review of Sunday evening, take us back!! ✨

CONCERT REVIEW - NZTrio at the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber on Sunday 24 September 2023. Review by Clare Martin, Classical Chromatics

The indomitable NZTrio returned to the Concert Chamber of the Auckland Town Hall last night with their programme titled Homeland Two. An almost full house shows that audiences are back to strength and keen to hear more of this celebrated chamber group. The essence of home was the theme in music from composers from Romania, China, New Zealand and Bohemia. A particular drawcard for me was to hear more from Victoria Kelly Composer after the stunning debut of her work Requiem earlier in the year.

A fusion of Cantonese folk music with western sounds opened up our ears for the evening with Chen Yi’s “Tunes from my Home”. The opening of the piece found joyful string glissandi bouncing off lightning runs from the piano. The sweet nostalgia of the second movement was almost reminiscent of Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess with a folk song theme woven against a counterpoint of delicate piano cascades.The third movement “Happiness” may not have been everybody’s cup of lapsang, but I loved its vigour. It threw off the shreds of the past and moved urgently into the future with rhythmic dissonant chords.

The second work of the evening was the rarely-heard Piano Trio in A minor by Romanian George Enescu, a work pieced together and only re-found in the 1990s. Out came the long legato phrases and the vibrato, all the sweeter when travelling from the fresh bite of the previous piece. The sombre second movement was a ravishing song of loss with a gorgeous soft sotto finish. The exuberant third movement expressed Enescu’s passion in the face of the horrors of the First World War with deep resonant phrases from strings and glorious piano lines.

Victoria Kelly’s description of NZTrio musicians as ‘luminous’ could be used to describe her own new work. Her Faroese ancestry was referenced on the cello, a soft fragment framed by the steps in pitch representing the different levels of basalt rock ledges on the island. The work had a beautiful spaciousness into which harmonics dropped like water from the rock faces. Kelly has a magic expressiveness that is reachable but never simplistic. “Lyre” is a shimmering work with a sense of mystery and an ache of lost souls. My only complaint is it was too short! I could have been lost in that world for a whole evening.

The thread through all three Homeland concerts this year has been the mighty Bohemian composer Antonin Dvořák. The final piece for the evening swept us off our Romantic feet with a “beautiful sound world”. A lush romp indeed with the sound of children in the forest, Cossacks, drinking songs, there was warmth and glorious tone from the NZTrio. Their ensemble playing was so finely tuned, as if they were one voice. Amalia Hall’s seamless beauty of tone, Somi Kim’s whole body expressiveness (and brought to my mind Benjamin Zander’s ‘one-buttock-playing’!) and Ashley Brown’s masterly warmth. This is a dream team, don’t miss them, I try not to.

🎵🏡 Aucklanders - with only a few days to go until "Homeland Two - Tunes from My Home" the Concert Chamber is filling up. We've opened up the gallery so book now to get the best spots!

📆 5pm 24 September, Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall
🎟️ Grab your tickets here: bit.ly/3rmEKev

Auckland Live thanks for your support! 🙏

🌊🎶 Here's a traditional Faroese hymn to start off your Sunday! If you've been to one of our Homeland Two concert you may have heard fragments of "Jeg Stod Mig Op En Morgenstund" in Victoria Kelly's newest commission "Lyre".

It has a very personal connection - Victoria’s grandmother was born in the incredibly isolated Faroe Islands. The lure of islands is explored in her music, evoking the hypnotic rhythm of waves, the shapes of the Faroes, and the ways in which places (and the journeys between them) shape us.

Don't forget - if you're in Auckland next week you will be able to hear Victoria's new work live at the Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall

Sondre Bratland - Jeg stod mig op en morgenstund On the tape it says this song is a " Hymn from Færøyane ".Recorded in September, 1985.

Introducing our Homeland Two signature cocktail - Siren Sour 🧜‍♀️🍸 Allow this aquamarine-coloured riff on a gin sour to lure you in with its song of light and shade. Combining the herbaceous and floral notes of Chinese oolong tea with the dark European forest notes of juniper and a vibrant burst of citrus, we are carried on the turquoise currents from Aotearoa to the world.

Created by soprano and spirit connoisseur Claire Filer, this cocktail will be available at our Concert Chamber performance of "Homeland Two - Tunes from my home" next week.

50ml gin
50ml oolong tea
25ml lemon juice
25ml oolong tea syrup
10ml blue curacao

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a martini glass. For the oolong tea syrup, steep 4 oolong tea bags (or a similar amount of loose leaf oolong) in 1c boiling water for 5min then add 1c sugar until dissolved.

Our last workshop for our 2023 Composition Competition was at New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington yesterday - a flying visit exploring fascinating works by talented composers in Wellington. Stay tuned as we announce the finalists in the coming weeks 🌟