New Zealand at Kings Place
The New Zealand String Quartet will take the stage in a New Zealand mini-festival at the Kings Place in London with three concerts in March 2012. The programmes combine a wide range of chamber music that speaks of migration across oceans, centuries and cultural boundaries. The musicians and composers of this concert series have traveled between an old world and a new one, have explored ancient and modern cultures and bring a contemporary perspective to folk and classical traditions. Fascinating new works which draw on cultures as diverse as Greek, Chinese and Māori are contrasted with the spiritual journeys of Beethoven and Schubert.
To complement the Quartet’s programmes, the short festival includes two other sessions. In the regular Kings Place “Words on Monday” slot, three generations of New Zealand poets, Fleur Adcock, Bill Manhire and performance poet Tusiata Avia, will read from their work, demonstrating what Manhire has described as New Zealand’s cultural shift “from old Europe to the new Pacific”.
And for the experimental “Out Hear” session, composer and director of Stroma Michael Norris has curated a programme called The Body Electric, in which a younger generation of New Zealand composers explore concepts of body and space by combining live musicians with electronics and multimedia.
All programmes will be presented at Kings Place.
Further details and information:
- Programmes and dates
- Words on Monday
- Out Hear
- New Zealand at Kings Place programme on the Kings Place website
With the support of the New Zealand Government through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s Cultural Diplomacy International Programme.
New Zealand at Kings Place has been supported by Victoria University of Wellington in acknowledgement of the many musicians, composers and writers associated with the University who are featured during the week’s events.
