Chamber music brings students together

Results of last week's NZCT Schools Chamber Music Contest.

The winning group goes on to represent Whanganui in the regional finals held in Wellington on Saturday, July 2, in the Adams Concert Room at the NZ School of Music.

The winning group, The Slavenian Trio, comprises students from Whanganui Collegiate School - Hideki Yutoku (violin), Kimiora Delamere-Heap (flute) and Haicheng Lai (piano). They played two movements from Sonata for flute, violin and piano by Martinu. They also received the Chamber Music Whanganui prize for the winning group.

There were four Highly Commended groups:

1) The Quarter Pounders - a string quartet (in fact the first from Whanganui to take part since the late 1960s) - Hideki Yutoku, Katie Chan (violins), Bethany Crosse (viola) and Isabella Li (cello) playing movements from Dvorak's American quartet. The schools represented were Whanganui Collegiate, Nga Tawa School, Wanganui Home Educators and Palmerston North Girls' High School.

2) Out for a Duck - Gerard Burgstaller (flute), Roseanna Burgstaller (piano) - Wanganui Home Educators, Caleb Ioakimi (guitar) - St Dominic's College and Benjamin Brunton (drums) - Whanganui Collegiate School.

3) No Strings Attached - Luke Squire, Connor Rooke (cornets), Bryn Morgan (trombone), Toby Clark (Baritone) - Whanganui High School, also The KBB award for excellence in a group featuring wind, brass or percussion.

4) Dimitrio - Gerard Burgstaller (flute), Francis Gregory (trombone), Amelia McKenna (piano) - Wanganui Home Educators, St Dominic's College.

The Best Performance of a New Zealand work and the local award given by the Wanganui Music Society for the Best Performance by a group featuring a vocalist went to Te Aroha - Sami Harrison (voice), Jemma Rasmusen (flute) and Olive Tahau (piano), all from Whanganui Collegiate School.

The Adjudicator's award went to Romancing the Waltz - Bryn Morgan, Olivia Bedwell, Jack Johnson all on the one piano - Whanganui High School.

The IRMT Whanganui prize for Most Promising Junior Group to The Savoy Trio - Victoria Smith (violin), Amber Lim (cello) Sophie Qiu (piano) - all Whanganui Collegiate students.

The contest day itself was a really lovely day with a great sense of camaraderie between all the students and excellence in all their performances.

As the adjudicator, Rod Skipp says, "Every group is a winner, just by making to the stage and performing their work. The skills that go into playing Chamber Music are complex and advanced."

He commended every group very warmly on their performance.

As district contest organiser, I would like to express my thanks to Whanganui Venues and Events for making it viable to use the Opera House for this occasion. The adjudicator found the acoustics very good and suitable for the groups, even despite the size of the venue. I hope we might be able to hold the contest there again in the future.