Troubadour Quartet in Greytown

The Greytown Music Group is seizing the opportunity to present a concert by the 2021 Troubadour Quartet, on Sunday March 7, before the players disperse to their various homes around the country.

The Adam Troubadour Quartet Programme is a two-yearly career development experience for four of NZ’s most promising young string players. They receive learning and performance opportunities provided by the Adam Chamber Music Summer School and Festival , and by members of the NZ String Quartet.

The 2021 Troubadours are Grace McKenzie and KiHei Lee on violin, Nathan Pinkney on viola, and Bethany Angus on cello. They have known each other for many years, from Secondary Schools Chamber Music Contests, National Youth Orchestra, university, and the Adam Summer Schools, and are really enjoying their time together as a quartet, which will include  giving many concerts in the Nelson area in February.

Grace and KiHei have just finished their honours degrees under Stephen Larsen at Auckland University, and attended the Castleman Quartet Programme in New York. Nathan, a qualified electrician, has completed a Bachelor of Music in Performance Violin, and is pursuing further musical development on violin and viola. Bethany completed her honours degree in Wellington in 2020, and this year will be free lancing on cello, piano, harpsichord and baroque cello.

The programme will include Mendelssohn’s A minor quartet, written after he had studied Beethoven’s scores in great depth, and including his characteristic drama and flair, and Quartet No 3 in F major by Shostakavich. Written in 1946, after his Symphony No 9 was censured by the Soviet authorities, the quartet movements are subtitled: Calm Unawareness of the future cataclysm, Rumblings of unrest and anticipation, Forces of War are unleashed, Hommage to the dead, and The Eternal Question: Why and to what purpose?

The concert will be at 4pm on Sunday 7th March, at 57 Wood St, Greytown. Admission $25, $10 for students. For bookings contact Ed and Juliet Cooke, 06 304 9497 or efjacooke@gmail.com.

Photo caption : troubadours Bethany Angus, Grace McKenzie, KiHei Lee and Nathan Pinkney.