At the World’s Edge Festival: intimacy, awe and connection

This week violinists Justine Cormack and Ben Baker will realise their dream of a new chamber music festival in Central Otago. It’s taken years of planning and holding their nerve in an increasingly challenging environment.

Violinist and Festival Director Justine Cormack

Four years ago, Justine Cormack knew her world was changing. It was, she says, as if she was standing “at the end of a road. It wasn’t a problem – the road had just stopped.”  After playing violin with the NZ Trio for 17 years, she felt she had done everything she wanted to do there. “It had been great – fulfilling a dream of mine. I was a major driver in the Trio. But I didn’t have a clear path from there. I needed to take a step back.”

Cormack already had a substantial and successful career as a violinist. After undergraduate music studies at the University of Canterbury she studied in the US, gaining a Masters degree from San Francisco Conservatory and a Doctorate from Stony Brook University in New York. She taught violin at Wellington’s Victoria University while playing with the NZSO and later held a position as Violin Lecturer at The University of Auckland. She was Concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia before her years with the Trio.

For Christchurch-born Cormack the pull back to the South Island was strong. She and her orchestral conductor husband Marc Taddei decided to move to land they had bought in Central Otago and build a house. Cormack took on the role of project manager. “All through high school I was going to be an architect. I experience things visually - I think of music in three dimensions – so architecture is something I know I would have loved. Being involved with our house project right through was a huge thrill, like stepping into shoes I’d always wanted to be in.”

She carried on playing the violin professionally during the building project while continuing her re-evaluation of where her work was going. “One of the strands I needed to put more time into was coaching musicians, sharing what I’ve needed to learn to have a successful career.” To do this she “crystallised” her own philosophy. “It’s holistic - how to look after myself, my mental attitude, my physical care. I’ve been working with professional musicians and had very positive results.”

Violinist and Festival Artistic Director Ben Baker

Photo credit: Kaupo Kikkas

Admitting to having “a few too many balls in the air”, Cormack is juggling another, the launch of a new annual chamber music festival in Central Otago. During that personal watershed year in 2017 she worked with the Queenstown-based Michael Hill International Violin Competition, having been a judge for earlier Competitions. In the chamber music round Cormack played in an ensemble with finalist Ben Baker, an award-winning young New Zealand violinist based in the UK. “He was such a joy to play with,” she says. “And we realised in various discussions that we had a similar dream to set up a really fantastic chamber music festival in this area. Ben and I knew we needed each other – he’s really connected and sought-after internationally and I’m on the ground here and well-connected to the New Zealand scene. And Queenstown needs a cultural heart.”

This week their dream will become a reality. Called At the World’s Edge Festival, it makes its debut with three chamber music concerts in Wanaka, Cromwell and Queenstown and an emerging artists’ programme which includes mentoring of younger musicians and concerts in schools. Cormack is Festival Director, Baker Artistic Director, and both will perform alongside a starry line-up of New Zealand-based musicians including pianist Diedre Irons, violist Gillian Ansell and cellist Andrew Joyce. “It’s a special privilege,” Baker said recently, “to play with people we admire who are also our friends.”

Queenstown

…awe-inspiring landscape.

Their programming concept, Cormack says, is “all about connection.” Those connections include Central Otago communities and their links to the magnificent surrounding landscape and the Clutha River. The festival’s short name is “AWE” and Cormack is passionate in explaining that both the music and the landscape itself are awe-inspiring.  “Classical music can be the same experience as standing on the top of a mountain; we’re lifting the lid on where fine music and high-quality performances can take you.”

On the theme of connection, the carefully curated AWE Festival programmes focus on four composers strongly linked in life and music, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and outstanding pianist and composer Clara Wieck. The latter played the role of both muse and performer of their music while composing her own. “They were”, says Cormack, “a famously close circle of artists with a fascinating web of emotional and artistic connections between them.” The four created some of the most beloved works of the chamber repertoire and the AWE programmes feature several of Schumann’s and Mendelssohn’s String Quartets, Brahms’ marvellous String Sextet in B-flat Major, and Wieck’s lovely Three Romances for violin and piano.

Rippon Hall, Wanaka

“…powerful, beautiful acoustic spaces.”

The three main Festival concerts are located in different venues, the Rippon Winery in Wanaka, the Cloudy Bay Shed in Cromwell and the Queenstown Memorial Centre. “That’s part of the concept,” says Cormack. “Moving through the landscape into powerful, beautiful acoustic spaces binds the concerts together.”

Both Directors are strongly invested in an important festival element, a role for a composer-in-residence, this year played by acclaimed young composer Salina Fisher. “Salina is inspired by the landscape,” says Cormack. “And having new New Zealand music played alongside other composers brings relevance to all the repertoire.”

Five of Fisher’s chamber works will be woven into the three programmes, including a world premiere that refers to the Clutha River. Mata-Au for violin, viola and cello was commissioned by the AWE Festival. Fisher will be there to provide insight into her compositions and also participates in the emerging artist schools programmes during the following week.

In these pandemic-disrupted times, some programme and personnel changes have been inevitable, but both directors are committed to going ahead. “Chamber music is so intimate, we can be nimble with it,” Baker says. “If we had fifteen people in the audience, we’d still feel it was worth doing.”  All the concerts will be recorded. And Cormack is characteristically full of determination.  “There’s no question that we’ll be getting this festival off the ground,” she declares, “with all our aims intact.”

At the World’s Edge Festival, Wanaka, Cromwell and Queenstown October 15-17. More information (and limited ticket sales) here.  

Read a profile of the AWE Festival’s Composer-in-residence Salina Fisher and her featured compositions here.