Chamber Music NZ Presents: The St Lawrence String Quartet

Chamber Music New Zealand is proud to present a very special concert with The St Lawrence String Quartet & The New Zealand String Quartet.

Canada’s premier chamber music ensemble, St Lawrence String Quartet returns to New Zealand for a 10 centre tour as the final concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s 2009 ‘Kaleidoscopes’ season.

The New Zealand tour includes two very special concerts in Auckland and Wellington when they join with the New Zealand String Quartet to perform Mendelssohn’s joyous Octet for Strings.

The St Lawrence String Quartet has performed close to 2000 concerts since forming in 1989 and burst onto international stages after winning the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 1992.

The quartet, consisting of Geoff Nuttall (violin), Lesley Robertson (viola), Christopher Costanza (cello) and recently joined by Scott St John (violin), regularly perform across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. This New Zealand tour will be their third visit to New Zealand and the first with Scott St John in the position of second violin.

The first half of the Wellington programme features the St Lawrence String Quartet performing Haydn’s Quartet in F Opus 77 No 2 and the new John Adams string quartet. Described in Gramophone as “provocative, challenging and incredibly popular”, John Adams asked the St Lawrence if he could write this work after hearing them perform his earlier quartet.

The New Zealand String Quartet – Helene Pohl (violin), Douglas Beilman (violin), Gillian Ansell (viola) and Rolf Gjelsten (cello) – join the St Lawrence String Quartet for the second half to perform Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings, written when he was only 16 and considered to be a masterpiece. Mendelssohn notated that the Octet “must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestra style”.

Event listed by SWPR Ltd

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