5 minute read
ARTS & CULTURE
Garry Currin, ’The Weight’ Oil on canvas, 2020 30cmH x 43cmW
@ Whitespace Garry Currin - This Earth; 13 September - 8 October
Currin’s landscapes are not allegories conveying meaning through symbolic representation, nor do they seek to imitate reality. Rather they employ, in the fashion of lyrical abstraction, the emotive and expressive qualities of colour, shape and brushwork to capture first the artist’s feelings, and subsequently the viewer’s.
Landscapes appear to be the subject, yet the dark shades, the atmospheric smudges of light and shadow carry a cipher of another world that shifts between experience, memory, and dreaming.
Although man is evident, he is not present in these landscapes where light plays, shifting and elusive through pale veils, teasing the connections between eye and memory, tempting us to capture the sense of a real place, a real time in the shapes of hills and waterways.
Part of the mystery lies in the ambiguity of form, as visual rhythms capture our need to identify evidence of our place in the landscape momentarily in the light, landmarks like staging posts in our imagination. Appreciating that there is ‘nothing new under the sun’, Currin’s search for painterly truth lies in his working processes. He paints, he says, “from the inside out” approaching the energy of the moment listening to the music of Toru Takemitsu (a Japanese composer influenced by the work of John Cage, Claude Debussy and traditional Japanese music). The process of painting, for Currin, is an exploratory sensing rather than a directional questing. The paintings that result from this process enable viewers to step outside themselves and into another world.
Behind Currin’s paint application lies a history of New Zealand’s art. If we are looking for signs of our painterly traditions then Petrus van der Velden’s evocation of the sublime (epitomised in his images of Otira Gorge), or hints of John Gully’s somewhat Arcadian landscapes, a certain darkness of the New Zealand psyche implied by Colin ...a row of fence posts, a road? an abandoned building? ...exposed
McCahon, and even Toss Woollaston’s “mountainous scrumblings” mutter quietly behind the scenes.
But in the end Currin’s paintings provide us with a visual negotiation of man’s subtle and shifting relationships with the land, with history and with our sense of the spiritual. Catalogue excerpt by Jacqueline Aust.
WHITESPACE, 20 Monmouth Street, T: 09 361 6331, www.whitespace.co.nz
St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra Sunday 20 September @ 2.30pm Another ‘must be there’ concert Somi Kim performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Conductor Beth Cohen
South Korean born New Zealand pianist Somi Kim has established herself as one of today’s most highly regarded young pianists. With a string of competition successes to her credit Somi Kim clearly has extensive concert experience not to be missed. She is much sought after as a chamber musician, song accompanist and répétiteur.
Somi has recently been appointed as the pianist with the NZTrio, a piano trio recognised as a ‘national treasure’ and as ‘New Zealand’s most indispensable ensemble’. She is an artist for the Kirckman Concert Society, Park Lane Group, Concordia Foundation, and is a yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians; a scholar on the Britten-Pears and Samling Artist Programmes, Georg Solti Accademia, and is a staff pianist at the International Holland Music Sessions, International Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Gisborne International Music Competition, and the New Zealand Opera School.
In recital, Somi’s recent and future appearances include Het Concertgebouw, Slovak Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Bridgewater Hall, and the Edinburgh Fringe, Ryedale, St Endellion and Oxford Lieder Festivals.
“SOMI KIM on the piano was utterly mesmerising” - Clare Martin, Radio 13, Auckland First Tuesday’s concert on 6 October. Exquisite Auckland based pianist, Lisa Chou, will play piano sonata Opus 111, The Ruins of Athens (arranged by Anton Rubenstein) in her programme, and in a link to the symphonies, the 15 Eroica variations. Lisa Chou studied in Vienna with one of the greatest Beethoven players in Europe, Paul Badura Skoda. Piano concerts sound very fine in St Matthew’s for although it is a large resonant space, it is possible to sit close for clarity and further away for a wonderful wash of sound. “Some audience members move about between pieces to enjoy the range of sound,” says John Aston, one of the concert organisers. The recently acquired Kawai Shigeru 7.5 foot grand piano is “the ideal piano
Somi Kim
Beth Cohen Since emigrating to New Zealand Beth Cohen has conducted the Christchurch School of Music Camerata Strings and ISO Orchestras, the Canterbury Regional Schools Orchestra, Resonance Orchestra, APO, and served as Orchestra and Bands adjudicator at the KBB Music Festival.
Currently Beth is conductor of the Christchurch’s Garden City Orchestra and Auckland’s Victorious March Band which recently won Gold in the NZCBA Festival.
This concert with St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra will be part of her PhD study on engaging audience participation (adult and youth) at the University of Canterbury.
If you have not heard St Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra play, then you are missing one of the finest musical experiences in Auckland. PN www.smco.org.nz
TICKETS Eventfinda or Door sales cash only. Adults $30. Concessions $25. Children under 12 free. Student rush on the day $15. ST MATTHEW-IN-THE-CITY CHURCH corner Wellesley & Hobson
St Matthew in the City First Tuesday’s Concert
Bold Beethoven piano music to celebrate Ludwig Van’s 250 birthday at St Matthew-in-the-City will be part of
Streets. www.stmatthews.nz for Beethoven, percussive with a beautiful lingering sound quality: bold and beautiful in equal measure”, he adds.
A cynic might think that a celebration of a composer’s 250 birthday is a simple record company marketing ploy, but such an occasion brings out wonderful groups of music which we may otherwise not hear. In this Covid-19 interrupted year, many cycles have either been abandoned or rescheduled. St Matthew’s First Tuesday team hopes that this will proceed as planned and some of the best Beethoven piano music will be heard.
The final concert in the First Tuesday series 2020 in November will feature concert organist, Paul Chan, playing the great Henry Willis III organ. Chan is very familiar with the instrument as he is also the parish director of music, a role which involves playing the organ every Sunday for services. Dashing concluding voluntaries and improvised elements within the services ensure he knows every inch of the instrument’s capabilities and resources. PN www.stmatthews.nz
Lisa Chou - Piano Bold Beethoven Birthday
Tuesday 6 th October, 12.10-12.50pm
Eroica Variations Turkish March from Ruins of Athens Piano Sonata Opus 111 Entry by koha.
Sun 20 September
at 2.30pm
programme Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande Op 80 Copland Appalachian Spring Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 2 C minor
