This weekend we welcome a virtuoso visitor from the Beijing Conservatory – pianist Xiang ZOU. In collaboration with Wellington Chamber Music Trust, the Confucius Institute at Victoria University and the Chinese Ministry of Culture, Xiang will join our own Head of Piano Studies, Jian LIU, in a very special concert this Sunday.

Xiang ZOU will perform all of the Ligeti Piano Etudes and Jian, all of the Debussy Piano Etudes. Acknowledged as being among the most fiendishly difficult works in the piano repertoire the double performance will earn its title: '20th Century Piano Virtuosity'. 

XIang and Jian will present a Performance Workshop together in which they describe the journey of preparing such challenging works for performance, and Xiang will be taking a masterclass for NZSM piano students on Monday: both events of these events are free and open to public observers.

Xiang ZOU and Jian LIU: Ligeti - Debussy concert
Sunday 5 May, 3:00pm
Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall
Tickets by subscription to WCMT or through Ticketek

Xiang ZOU and Jian LIU: Performance Workshop
Friday 3 May, 1:30pm, Adam Concert Room, NZSM Kelburn Campus

Xiang ZOU: Piano Masterclass
Monday 6 May, 3:00pm, Room 211, NZSM Kelburn Campus
 

For those who believe the weekend starts on a Friday, then there is PLENTY to choose from in the next three days. Alongside the Xiang ZOU – Jian LIU events above there is also....

The Friday Lunchtime Concert at NZSM Concert Hall, Mt Cook from three-quarters of the New Zealand String Quartet. Rolf Gjelsten will play a Bach Solo Cello Suite (No. 3 in C) and Doug Beilman, Gillian Ansell and Rolf will perform Beethoven's String Trios, Op.9 No.1.
Friday Lunchtime Concert: NZSQ x 0.75
Friday 3 May, 12:10-1:00pm,
NZSM Concert Hall, Mt Cook Campus, free entry

The NZSM SaxFest for classical saxophonists starts on Friday and runs over the weekend. More than 25 players from around the country will gather for a weekend of tutorials, masterclasses, ensembles and repertoire exploration - and there are concerts on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon: entry by koha.
SaxFest Tutors concert – Saturday 4 May, 5:30pm
SaxFest Finale concert – Sunday 5 May, 1:00pm
Adam Concert Room, NZSM Kelburn Campus – Entry by koha

And on Sunday evening, the NZ Indonesia Association and Gamelan Ensembles at NZSM hold the third and final session in the Garuda Indonesia Film and Music Festival. By all accounts, the films give a wonderful insight into Indonesian life and issues, and the gamelan performances are always an exciting and enjoyable spectacle.
Garuda Indonesia Festival of Film and Music
Sunday 5 May, 6:00pm
Adam Concert Room, NZSM Kelburn Campus

A host of Australian connections have cropped over recent weeks or are cropping up in the near future...

Erin Helyard, our Lecturer in Historical performance, was the Musical Director for the inaugural Hobart Baroque Festival where he worked with, among many others, NZSM alumni Madeleine Pierard and Donald Nicolson.

Tuesday 30 April was International Jazz Day, and our Pasifika Music Coordinator Opeloge Ah Sam recorded a video of a new work, Tupulaga Samoa that was broadcast to Auckland audiences of the Awatea Pacific Jazz Collaboration project as well as posted on the internet and broadcast by RadioNZ Concert. Australian radio picked up the video clip and interviewed Opeloge about the composition and his work at NZSM – the interview broadcast across Australia and the Pacific. Read about the project, with links to the video and radio interview, on our News page.

The Quadrivium String Quartet, comprising two NZSM graduates and two current performance students, has been invited to perform in Canberra. The group are completing a six-concert tour with a concert in the Hunter Council Chamber next Thursday, 9 May – a project to raise funds to help them take up an invitation from the Penderecki String Quartet to two summer schools in Canada.

The New Zealand String Quartet is also taking a bunch of NZSM string students with them to Canberra for a Music Festival in the second week of May. They have been invited to form the accompanying orchestra for several of the scheduled concerts in the festival.

And New Zealand-born guitarist John Couch, currently based in Canberra, will be here on May 17 and 18 giving a recital and a masterclass in a joint venture between NZSM and the Wellington Classical Guitar Society.

Victoria University holds its first Information Session for prospective students on Thursday 9 May in the McLaurin Lecture Theatre on Kelburn Parade and based around the newly opened Hub in the centre of the Kelburn Campus. NZSM will be there, so if you know any secondary school students who are wondering about their tertiary musical options, this is a great opportunity for them to come and see, hear and ask questions.

The Albany Campus is holding its Open Day on Saturday 18 May, so students in Auckland who are wondering about the NZSM Jazz course at Albany, or about what NZSM can offer here in Wellington or via distance learning, should get along to the Massey Campus between 10am and 2pm.

NZSM's Young Musicians Programme, the pre-tertiary academy for young musicians in Wellington, is also holding its YMP Open Day on Saturday 18 May. YMP will run as usual and visitors can see our specialist tutors working with talented school aged students in classical and jazz performance, composition, chamber music and guitar ensemble. An exact class timetable will be up on our webpage www.nzsm.ac.nz/ymp shortly.

The first Big Band Big Night at the Bristol will take place on Thursday 9 May. All three NZSM Big Bands will perform in the convivial setting of one of Cuba Streets great establishments. The music will start at 8:30 and go on until late, but savvy aficionados will get there early for a good table and some fine fare.
NZSM Big Band Big Night at the Bristol
Thursday 9 May from 8:30
Bristol Hotel, Cuba Street – free entry

Those same aficionados will already know about the regular programme of Jazz happening on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Meow Cafe and Bar, but if you haven't been along yet, grab a chance as soon as you can. The line-up is stacked with NZSM staff, artist teachers, alumni and current students. Meow is at 9 Edwards Street – from the corner of Manners and Victoria Street head diagonally through the alley that leads southwest!

The same can be said of the wonderfully intensive programme of Jazz planned for the Wellington Jazz Festival on Cuba in early June – alongside the international guests the line-up is stacked with NZSM staff, artist teachers, alumni and current students. Check out the Wellington Jazz Festival programme – managed through the New Zealand International Arts Festival office.
Wellington Jazz Festival on Cuba, 6-8 June 

Alongside all that is mentioned above, you may note that we also have:

A Friday Lunchtime concert on 10 May from Donald Maurice, Margaret Medlyn and Jian Liu

The second Friday at 5:15 concert on 24 May celebrating the Virtue of Scholarships through student performances

Composer Workshops on Wednesdays from the NZSQ (May 8), composer and bassoonist Ben Hoadley (May 15), a public discussion on Music's direction and future involving Dugal McKinnon on May 22, and reflections from our Composer in Residence David Downes (May 29)

Music Forums (Fora) from Dr David Lines, Auckland University (May 10), from Prof Charles Te Ahukaramū Charles, Auckland (May 17), our own Dr Erin Helyard (May 24), and Graeme Downes, Otago University (May 31)

Violin masterclasses from Michael Hill International Violin Competition Jury members Dmitry Sitkovetsky (May 29) AND Christian Altenburger (May 30)

A concert from NZSM artist ensemble NZSMFaculty Brass and brass students at St Andrew's on The Terrace on Friday 31 May

...but more about these in DawnChorus May 2013 Part the Second...

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music is a joint initiative of
Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington

For some of New Zealand's most talented musicians, the only thing that stands in the way of their dreams is the lack of funds to make them real.

By making a lifetime donation or a gift in your will to the New Zealand School of Music, you can help young musicians to fulfil their ambitions.

For further information on how you can provide support for students at Te Kōkī, New Zealand School of Music, please contact:

Elizabeth Hudson
NZSM Director
Ph: 04 463 5860
Email: elizabeth.hudson@nzsm.ac.nz

or

Diana Meads
Development Manager -- Planned Giving
Victoria University of Wellington Foundation
Ph: 0800 VIC LEGACY (0800 842 534)
Email: diana.meads@vuw.ac.nz

www.victoria.ac.nz/foundation