Ensemble group heads for smaller centres

Tour manager Martin Konner has spent 20 years with Chamber Philharmonia Cologne. Photo / Supplied

In a week, the eight musicians of Chamber Philharmonia Cologne will begin a 16-centre tour of the country with a concert at St Matthew in the City. They will go on to take their best of Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Handel and Tchaikovsky to towns from Gisborne and Whakatane to Taupo and even Rangiora.

Tour manager and violinist Martin Konner has spent the last 20 years with the group, an ensemble that gives an international platform to players who are for the most part graduates of the celebrated Cologne University of Music.

"Our leader Michael Kibardin is a Russian," says Konner. "Oboe soloist Tome Atanasov is Macedonian, our violinists come from Romania and Great Britain and we even have some Australians. And there are three Germans as well.

"Our motto is 'classical music the world over', but not necessarily in the big concert halls. People have to pay a lot of money when they go there. We want to bring our music to the people at a much more modest cost."

Last month, over the Tasman, as well as performing in Melbourne's St Paul's Cathedral, Konner and his colleagues went to the humbler churches of Bendigo and Warrnambool.

"In New Zealand we visit the main centres, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Nelson of course," Konner explains. "But instead of flying between them, we're taking the road so why not stop along the way and play our music?"

The choice of churches for venues is a savvy one; kind on the budget and a boost for both ambience and acoustics. "This is music which fits in with such surroundings," says Konner. "As well as this, when we travel we get such joy from experiencing a whole range of beautiful buildings."

For an Antipodean point of view, Konner directs me to Guy Curd, the group's Australian cellist who, back home, is principal cellist with Sydney Chamber Orchestra. Curd finds that the Cologne group offers "the rare opportunity to perform the same work so many times in a row in different places. Often in Sydney we just do the one performance. You get a high and then, a couple of hours afterwards, it's all finished and you wonder what's happened."

At 41, Curd is third eldest in the group, an engineer who was inspired to take up the cello again at the age of 19, coinciding, he says, with the death of Jacqueline Du Pre.

As an Australian, he has appreciated taking this music around his own country during the last month. "Particularly in the small towns," he says. "Some of them don't get to experience a lot of music by German chamber orchestras. And they respond. Just a couple of weeks ago in Western Australia we received two standing ovations.

"On another level, it was special for our violin soloist and leader Michael Kibardin to meet some of the Russians in the Melbourne audience. It turned out to be quite a while since he had heard proper Russian spoken by native speakers."

As for the actual concerts, "the best moments are when things go wrong - when you make a bit of a squeak or the music blows off the stand. It focuses your attention, especially if the audience notices."

With a programme that features Vivaldi's Summer and Bach's glorious D minor Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin, I am surprised there is not a harpsichordist in the group.

The Australian confesses he is "not the biggest fan of the harpsichord sound and it gives the cellist a bit more of a role in the continuo."

Performance

What: Chamber Philharmonia Cologne

Where and when: St Matthew in the City, Auckland, Saturday February 12 at 8pm; St Peter's Cathedral, Hamilton, Sunday February 13 at 8pm; Holy Trinity Church, Devonport, Monday February 14 at 8pm.