NZ String Quartet with Jenny Wollerman

Presented by Chamber Music New Zealand.

Helene Pohl - violin
Douglas Beilman - violin
Gillian Ansell - viola
Rolf Gjelsten - cello
Jenny Wollerman - soprano

"Fluid and energetic....uncommon eloquence" - The New York Times (USA)

With their dynamic performing style, eloquent communication and beautiful sound, the New Zealand String Quartet have forged a major career in the busy international chamber music field, earning the acclaim of critics and the delighted response of audiences.

Jenny Wollerman has performed throughout Australasia, and Europe as well as Taiwan, as recitalist, and with orchestras. She studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, graduating in 1991 with a Master of Music in Opera. After further studies at the Banff Centre in Canada and the Britten-Pears School in England, she returned to pursue her career in Australia and New Zealand.

The quartet have particularly distinguished themselves through imaginative programming, insightful interpretations of the string quartet repertoire including cycles of composers. Music from Mozart to Berg, and the development of an international audience for important new works from New Zealand composers.

Programme one:

-Beethoven – String Quartet in A Opus 18 No 5
-Schoenberg – String Quartet No 2 in F # minor Opus 10
-Smetana – String Quartet No 1 From My Life

A buoyant work by a young Beethoven is paired with Schoenberg’s pivotal Second String Quartet. Written in 1908 after Schoenberg discovered his wife was having an affair with painter Gerstl, this crisis appears to be the subject of his second string quartet and marks the exact moment when Schoenberg abandoned tonality. A soprano voice features in the final two movements, praying for divine solace after earthly struggles, then a vision of the spirit’s journey to ethereal realms.

Event listed by SWPR Ltd

View their other events or contact promoter