What: New Zealand String Quartet @ Anglican Parish of Clevedon
When:
A cosy oasis to welcome in Spring. We’re excited to perform as part of the beloved Sanctuary St James concert series with a programme of awe-inspiring, boundary-pushing chamber music. Sanctuary St James is a twice-yearly concert series in the historic All Souls Clevedon. They present a variety of musical forms (including classical, opera, tango and Celtic jigs) and audiences love the atmohphere of this historic church, lit by candlelight and adorned with ivy.
Mika Cornelius Universal Veil (new composition)
Dmitri Shostakovich String Quartet No. 1 in C major Op 49
Edvard Grieg String Quartet in G minor, Op. 27
You’ll be immersed in music that bridges the ancient and modern. We’ll begin with a brand-new composition: emerging New Zealand composer, Mika Cornelius’s Universal Veil draws inspiration from the hidden, interconnected world of fungi, tracing its strange and wondrous lifecycle. We’ll move on to the emotional serenity of Shostakovich’s 1st String Quartet and finish with the passionate, Nordic drama of Grieg’s sweeping G minor Quartet.
Mika Cornelius is the recipient of the 2024/25 NZSQ | SOUNZ Tarling Trust Commission, an award for an early-career New Zealand composer to create a new piece of music for string quartet. The Quartet is thrilled to have had the chance to work with this talented young composer on their piece, Universal Veil, and to be premiering and performing this exciting new work.
Across their 2025 Season, the NZSQ wants to help you discover the joy of chamber music. Whether you’re a life-long classical music fan, or simply looking for a memorable night out, this concert is not to be missed.
No Need to be an Expert
The concert programme, crafted in the NZSQ’s signature style, aims to engage audiences of all levels of familiarity with chamber music. Each piece of music is preceded by a lively and informative introduction delivered by the Quartet members themselves. These introductions seek to shed light on the stories behind the music, making it an enriching experience suitable for all audiences.
Since 1987 the New Zealand String Quartet has been New Zealand’s leading chamber ensemble, with a distinguished record of international touring success and a body of acclaimed recordings. Much-loved by audiences at home and around the world, the Quartet performs over eighty concerts to popular and critical acclaim each year.
Career highlights have included winning two Aotearoa Music Awards (Best Classical Album in 2011 and Best Classical Artists in 2024), highly-praised performances in London at the Wigmore Hall, in New York at the prestigious Frick Collection and in Washington’s Library of Congress. In recent years the group has toured to Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom on a regular basis as well as performing in Mexico, Curaçao, Korea, Australia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and China.
The Quartet’s extensive discography includes the complete Mendelssohn, Bartók, and Berg string quartets, works by Ravel, Debussy, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvořák, and Wolf, as well as the premiere recording of the remarkable Zoltan Székely quartet. In February 2019 they released the final volume in a three-CD Brahms set for Naxos.
