This week we bring you a top pick from NZSQ violinist Helene Pohl who is excited about the whole programme, since as co-musical director she helped put it together. And she swears it’s not just about heaving a sigh of relief when it’s all over that has her picking the Grand Finale:
“This concert will feature an incredibly wide variety of music – from the first concert-hall use of urban street sounds in Orlando Gibbons’ 400-year-old ‘Cries of London’, and the French counterpart to that in Janequin’s ‘Cris de Paris’, through to four brand new ‘Cries’ written by some of New Zealand’s most groundbreaking living composers.
The NZSQ and the Song Company have long been inspired by each other, the many similarities in an all-vocal and an all-string group, and dreamed of a collaboration on music specially written for us. Now we are adding the Ying Quartet in as well, so in the Watson ‘Cry’ we will have eight strings and six singers. And to finish, featuring our Ying String guests, a glorious Brahms sextet.
I have a feeling history may be made in that concert! A true Festival event.”