Love Triangle - the “new” NZTrio on tour

NZTrio - Ashley Brown (cello), Amalia Hall (violin), Somi Kim (piano)

In the NZTrio’s recent touring programme I was struck by Dinuk Wijeratne's rhapsodic Love Triangle – for me the title described the whole concert. An intimate sense of ensemble was evident throughout, the three musicians "leaning in" to each other in effortless rapport. The work’s multi-ethnic influences and improvisatory style were also an indication that the Trio’s adventurous programming approach will continue. And the surprising way Love Triangle began – instrumental tuning sliding into the work itself – reminded me of the organic way this version of NZTrio came to life.

The "new" line-up of the Trio began working together in late 2018, violinist Amalia Hall and pianist Somi Kim joining cellist Ashley Brown as guest musicians. NZTrio was re-grouping at the time after the departure of founder members Justine Cormack and Sarah Watkins. Last year Kim and Hall accepted Brown's invitations to join the group permanently, Kim returning to New Zealand from London, and the ensemble played a number of concerts together fitting around existing individual engagements.

I heard their latest programme in Lower Hutt with an intimate audience in St Mark’s Church. The concert opened with Beethoven’s Piano Trio Opus 1 No 3, an early work that foreshadows the drama of Beethoven’s later music. The gentle musicality of the opening bars opened out to a very wide range of dynamic contrasts, showing off the unity of the Trio’s conception and performance.

Their fine ensemble work then combined with an easy, free virtuosity in the much more recent tango-based Old Photographs by Greek-Canadian composer Christos Hatzis. This is the penultimate of eight movements of a much bigger multi-media music theatre work, Constantinople, which includes middle eastern singer and electronics. Hatzis was Wijeratne’s teacher at one time and both composers are exploring personal heritage while working with themes of multi-ethnicity and convergence.

The whole touring programme is called “InterFusions” and includes a newly commissioned work from New Zealander Salina Fisher, who has a deep interest in her own Japanese heritage. The title of her moving and beautiful work, Kintsugi, refers to the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. Fisher sees kintsugi as “a metaphor for embracing 'brokenness' and imperfection as a source of strength.” Her piece involves, she says, “musical fragmentation, fragility, mending, and finding beauty in the cracks”.

Kintsugi by Salina Fisher

…finding beauty in the cracks.

Kintsugi explores instrumental timbre and sonority with glissandi and harmonics in the strings and a lot of pedal in the piano part, enabling the piano strings to pick up resonances from the other instruments. Kim’s rippling playing had a liquid beauty, with Brown’s beseeching and emotional cello lines underneath. The whole work slips away quietly at the end with Hall’s high, ethereal violin and the Trio maintained their thoughtful and respectful approach, holding the audience for a moment of silence before the applause.

After brilliant playing in the hypnotic, repetitive Love Triangle mentioned above, InterFusions ended with Ravel, who combined his French and Basque heritage in his popular Piano Trio in A minor. It was a performance of wonderful lightness and exquisite colours that showed again both the virtuosity of each player and their ensemble strength.

Kim has specialised throughout her career in work with other instrumentalists and singers and seems to be playing a major role for NZTrio in ensemble cohesion - very attentive to her colleagues, offering a lead in colour and style, the "collaborative" pianist at work. But all three musicians are outstanding, with Hall’s stylistic versatility and easy facility and Brown’s warm and passionate musicality contributing to a very satisfying ensemble. Though their overseas plans have had to be shelved for now, when borders open they’ll be great international ambassadors for New Zealand music.  

This regional tour for Chamber Music New Zealand was the first time some New Zealand audiences had met the new version of NZTrio. In this COVID-interrupted world, the tour itself had undergone changes – originally planned for June, it was postponed and this month took over some of the spaces left by the Marmen Quartet when that UK-based string quartet was unable to travel here. Seven centres large and small have greeted the Trio’s concerts with enthusiasm and two more are coming up in Auckland and Hawkes Bay. Not to be missed!

InterFusions NZTrio Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber October 18, Hawkes Bay Festival October 25. More details here.