Conference to celebrate music of Haydn

victoria-university-of-wellington

Fri May 15 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Conference to celebrate music of Haydn

Friday, 15 May 2009, 12:43 pm
Press Release: Victoria University of Wellington

A major music conference run by the New Zealand School of Music will celebrate the work and influence of the “father of symphony” 200 years after his death

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Forms of Expression, Friday 22 May – Sunday 24 May, will bring music scholars from New Zealand and around the world to Wellington to honour Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, whose music helped define an era and continues to resonate.

The event is taking place in honour of the 200th anniversary of Joseph Haydn’s death on 31 May 1809.

Conference organiser Dr Keith Chapin says the conference, which will feature both performance and scholarship, will celebrate the diverse forms of musical expression that take place at the New Zealand School of Music (NZSM) and around Wellington.

As one of the most brilliant, prolific, and successful composers of the classical era, Joseph Haydn helped define the search for expression in the second half of the 18th century, says Dr Chapin.

“His music was an epitome of expression for many of the time, and he was a composer who took at times a cue, at times his distance from the forms of expression cultivated by his contemporaries.”

Dr Chapin says the conference will be notable for a wide range of activities, including concerts, a mass at the Anglican Cathedral, and a soirée and reception at Parliament—but also for the calibre and diversity of the participants, including a keynote address by Richard Will (University of Virginia).

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The conference will conclude with a roundtable discussion moderated by NZSM Director Professor Elizabeth Hudson.

Most of the activities will be held in the historic Hunter Building at Victoria University’s Kelburn campus. A Friday lunchtime concert presented in association with Chamber Music New Zealand and The New Zealand String Quartet, will be held in the Adam Concert Room, which is also situated on the Kelburn campus, while a Saturday evening soirée will be held at Parliament (attendance by invitation or through full conference registration) and hosted by Hon. Chris Finlayson, Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, in association with Pieter Diessl, the Austrian consul-general, Professor Elizabeth Hudson, Director of the New Zealand School of Music, and the New Zealand String Quartet Trust.

The conference is part of a year-long series of events devoted to Haydn
at the NZSM.

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