TaCH Baroque Trio

The next concert in the Globe Theatre Sunday Matinee Series will be a Baroque concert by a trio of experienced Baroque performers.

The trio’s name derives from the initial letter of the performers’ second names.

Roy Tankersley completed Post Graduate Studies at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He has been involved in music education at Secondary and Tertiary levels for 40 years, performs on organ and harpsichord and has directed various choirs including 10 years with the Wellington Bach Choir and 14 years with the Whanganui Schola Sacra Choir and Youth Chorus. Since 2003 Roy has worked as a free lance performer, teacher and adjudicator and organ consultant based in Palmerston North. He is Chairman of the Manawatu/Whanganui region of NZ Choral Federation, a Fellow of the NZ Association of Organists and an Associate of the Royal School of Church Music. He was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in New Year Honours 2011.

Ingrid Culliford spent many years studying and working in London as a free-lance flautist where she worked with several known orchestras and chamber ensembles. After teaching at Trinity College and the Royal Academy of Music Junior department, Ingrid returned to New Zealand in 1994. Since then, she has continued to perform widely. For a number of years she was tutor in flute at both Waikato University and the NZ School of Music in Wellington. She was also Co-Head of Music at Nga Tawa School and a Senior Examiner for the International Baccalureate as well as an examiner for the NZ Music Examinations Board. In August 2015 she was recipient of the Chamber Music NZ Marie Vandevart Award f and was appointed as a Member of the NZ Order of Merit (MNZM) in the 2019 New Years Honours list, for services to Music and Education.

Annie Hunt was born and grew up in Whanganui. She became a member of the NZ Youth Orchestra in 1971 and was leader of the cello section in 1976. Annie was a member of the Auckland Symphonia (Now Philharmonia) for two years. She spent 25 years teaching and doing professional freelance work in orchestras, quartets and theatres in Britain. She moved back to Whanganui in March 2017 and is currently teaching strings at four schools in Whanganui and two in Marton, as well as having a private teaching practice. In 2020 Annie set up the Whanganui Schools' String Ensemble.

The Trio will perform Baroque 18th-century sonatas by such familiar composers as Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach, as well as the less familiar Michel Blavet. Roy Tankersley will also play two harpsichord pieces by the French composer Rameau. As with the other composers on this programme Rameau was also a prodigy, having learned music before he could read or write. His music shows him to be ahead of his time musically. The Handel and Vivaldi sonatas have in common the fact that unscrupulous publishers chose to release the sonatas to the public ahead of permission, as they knew that there was an appetite for new music by them.

Handel had followed his old employer, the Elector of Hanover to London and profited by his boss becoming King George 1. As with Bach, and Rameau, Vivaldi’s reputation went into a decline after his death. Bach’s music was revived in the nineteenth century by Mendelssohn, but it was not until the twentieth century that the music of Rameau, and the virtuoso violinist, teacher and Roman Catholic priest Vivaldi was rediscovered.

Blavet is possibly the least well-known composer on the programme. He was born in 1700, and by the age of 21 he had taught himself to play almost every instrument available to him. He specialized in the flute, which he played left-handed and at which he was a virtuoso. Blavet’s contemporaries, including Voltaire, were unanimous in their praise of his artistry, his expressive range, and his extraordinary dexterity.

Admission to the concert is by donation, recommended from $5.