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Soprano Has Wairarapa Connection

July 23, 2019 July2019 No Comments

Martinborough Musical Festival 28-30 September,www.martinboroughmusicfestival.co.nz

The Martinborough Music Festival team are pleased to announce that this year’s Festival programme will feature a broadening of the traditional chamber music musical landscape with the inclusion of Wellington soprano, Jenny Wollerman, accompanied by Michael Houstoun.

Jenny is delighted to be part of the Festival having links to the Wairarapa through the law firm WCM Legal, originally known as Wollerman, Cooke and McClure. Visits to her Wairarapa relatives were a regular feature of her childhood. So it is particularly special for her to return and perform in Martinborough.

Following undergraduate studies at Victoria University and Wellington Polytechnic, Jenny Wollerman did post graduate study at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia graduating with a Master of Music in Opera. She chose to pursue her career in Australia and New Zealand singing principal roles for the New Zealand Opera Company and the State Opera of South Australia. Jenny has also performed with orchestras throughout Australasia, including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonic, and in Tasmania, Adelaide and Perth. She performed as soprano soloist in the Lord of the Rings Symphony in 2003 at the premiere in Wellington and in Taiwan conducted by John Mauceri.

These days, Jenny is best known for her recital work. The collaboration with Michael Houstoun began when he heard her sing with the New Zealand String Quartet; she and Michael first performed together at the Wanaka Festival in 2011.

For the Martinborough concert “we are planning to include mainly French art songs along with some English and Russian…its late Romantic period with expressive lyricism based around amazing poetry”. Jenny says she has “some sort of soul connection thing with French music…Debussy, Faure, Hahn, Ravel, Poulenc… All these works seem emotive, subtly passionate and it is something I connect with deeply. We won’t fit all these composers in but we are definitely intending to include En Sourdine by Faure which Michael and I love performing”. It is Jenny’s wish that the audience “might begin to love these songs as we do” after hearing her recital with Michael Houstoun.

Jenny Wollerman and Michael Houstoun have made a CD “Between Darkness and Light” for Rattle Records. Some of the songs from the CD will feature in their performance.

Jenny Wollerman is a Senior Lecturer at the New Zealand School of Music. Her teaching gained national recognition in 2005 when two of her students, Madeleine Pierard and Alison Cormack  gained First and Second place in New Zealand’s premier singing competition, the Lexus Song Quest. She is completing a PhD in Musicology.         Winifred Bull

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