Rising Kiwi opera star Madeleine Pierard to tour here

Madeleine Pierard and Terence Dennis (with Anna Pierard)
New Zealand tour
August 4-23

Rising New Zealand international soprano Madeleine Pierard will return next month to perform 10 concerts as part of Chamber Music New Zealand’s Kaleidescope season.

Madeleine won the 2005 Lexus Song Quest before pursuing studies at the Benjamon Britten Opera School in London, where she is now a Jette Parker Young Artist with the Royal Opera in Covent Gardens.

She will perform with pianist Terence Dennis, starting with a concert in Napier on August 4.

Madeleine’s sister Anne, who was recently in the NBR New Zealand Opera season of Cavalleria Rusticana, will join them in four concerts – Napier, Palmerston North, New Plymouth and Auckland.

The concerts feature Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne, a selection of Schumann’s Spanisches Liederspiel, Bergs Seven Early Songs, as well as arias from Bellini and Rossini.

All the concerts feature a newly commissioned work, Songs for Beatrice by Ross Harris, who worked closley with poet Vincent O‘Sullivan to create the work which celebrates the life of New Zealand astronomer Beatrice Tinsley.

Mr Harris says Dr Tinsley, who died in 1981, was a pioneer who was famous in her field of scientific research but was little known in New Zealand.

She was Professor of Astronomy at Yale University and part of the team which discovered the universe was infinitely expanding. She also played cello and loved Bach, and this is reflected in one of the songs in the work, True Romance.

Mr Vincent says he and Mr Harris took the chance to engage with her personality and interests.

“I wrote a group of poems in various registers that I hoped Ross would find musically useful. The name Beatrice, of course, has marvellous resonances, while her dealing with galaxies as 'a job' and the tragedy of her early death spurred us both.

"It was also a way to celebrate and honour who she was and what she did.”

For more information
www.chambermusic.co.nz

Programme One
Canteloube | Selections from Les Chants d’Auvergne (Songs from the Auvergne)
Messiaen | Trois Melodies
Berg | Sieben Frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs)
Ross Harris | Songs for Beatrice (CMNZ commission)
Bellini | Tre Ariette
Rossini | La regatta veneziana (The Venetian Regatta)
Rossini | Bel raggio lusinghier (from Semiramide)

Programme Two (with Anna Pierard)
Schumann | Selections from Spanisches Liederspiel (Spanish Songbook)
Brahms | Von Ewige Liebe (Of Eternal Love); Die Mainacht (The May Night)
Berg | Sieben Frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs)
Ross Harris | Songs for Beatrice (CMNZ commission)
Mozart | Arias from Cosi Fan Tutte, Don Giovanni and La Clemenza di Tito
Rossini | ‘Non piu mesta’ from La Cenerentola (Cinderella)
Bellini | ‘Ah non credea mirarti’ from La Sonnambula; ‘Mira o Norma’ from Norma