Wellington to Queenstown

Wellington on a good day is glorious. Blue skies, deep turquoise water, houses dotted along the hills all looking freshly painted.

Tub of flowers in a Wellington

Yesterday I flew from Wellington to Queenstown. We all climbed on board but we're then informed that our flight was delayed because of some sort of leak (never quite explained). They found another plane the same size so we were reseated in that. I overheard a staff member say that these passengers were lucky because it would take hours before the defective plane was ready to take off.

The Southern Alps were much more spectacular than my phone camera could record

 On our way south, passengers (the plane was full) were offered free wine for the inconvenience and the servings were very generous. When we disembarked the passengers clapped in appreciation.

Otago peaks, flying into Queenstown

Ah coffee...

A couple of days without coffee means I am really enjoying the excellent coffee at a little warehouse type coffee shop called Emporio Cafe in Wellington!

Emporio Cafe

Nelson to Wellington

Goodbye Nelson

I had a very smooth flight from Nelson to Wellington this morning. There were two smoke plumes in the distance and people were scanning the surrounding bushland for fire. The hostess said lots of her Nelson colleagues had been evacuated and we're living with friends.

Hello Wellington

Twenty five minutes later I was landing in Wellington to clear skies, a completely flat sea, and unusual heat. There has been a fire in the city here as well, but it was put out quickly. 

New Zealand String Quartet

The New Zealand String Quartet (NZSQ) is a national treasure, which is something I didn't know before coming to Nelson. They were on my radar but I didn't realise what a phenomenon they are. Then I heard them play and thought 'wow'!

The NZSQ are the organisers of the Adam festival, or perhaps artistic directors might be a better description although I was told yesterday that up until last year they even organised the rehearsal schedule.

 Their schedule is here: http://nzsq.org.nz/

Suter Gallery in Nelson

Nelson has a marvelous little gallery, the Suter Art Gallery, set in the Queens Garden, which is a green refuge near the city centre.

Queens Garden

 At the moment there is an exhibition of Alan Pearson's paintings and Steve Fuller's ceramics. Both are definitely worth visiting. Pearson's paintings, mostly portraits, many with some sort of grey tinge, are memorable (perhaps especially for a portrait artist? ) and Steve Fullmer's ceramics large, colourful, interesting and fun.

I especially liked a vase type sculpture with multi layers and written comment on the outside. 'Jesus said buy Steve Fullmer's art's said one inscription.

Steve Fullmer's ceramic

Watercolour of bridge in Queen's Garden, Nelson

Nelson fires (2)

Smoke haze enveloped Nelson in the morning yesterday.  Three thousand people have been evacuated from Wakefield just south west of the city. Then at 2:30, after the  afternoon concert we came out and could see that another fire had broken out near the city..

Fire near the centre of Nelson

it was just up the road from  my hostel and I got a note from my friend in Stoke (on the way to Wakefield) saying she thought she should come and get me as the hostel was very near a big nature reserve and if that caught alight I'd be having to leave in a hurry. So I am now in Stoke and much relieved.  We both felt better having someone to talk to about this unfolding catastrophe. The civil defence issued a notice saying anxiety is common in these situations and it is best to talk to others!

I don't think I would have slept much at the hostel even though the fire was largely controlled by nightfall. They had two helicopters working on it almost immediately.

Music and context

The fires near Nelson continue to dominate the news. The family of my concert seat neighbour were told to evacuate yesterday. She has been staying with a friend for some days. Last night she arrived at the concert saying " My neighbour emailed to say 'I hope you took your valuables', but what is valuable?'

The fires are making the context of the music we are hearing seem even more pertinent. Prokofiev writing in 1932, Bartok in 1916. You hear it in their music. The music curators included a very worthwhile session in the program explaining Bartok. I found it very useful hearing Vârjon explain the dissonances in Bartok's music and their relationship to the time in which it was written.

Várjon plays Bartok

Waitangi Day music

Today is Waitangi Day in New Zealand, and a public holiday. It is day 6 of the music festival and I am pacing myself, staving off exhaustion. It is a familiar feeling about day six as the concerts and sketching combine to keep.me going beyond capacity.

I looked at today's program and wondered whether I had the stamina to attend: 10am - talk about recently (last 30 years) rediscovered Maori instruments and 2pm concert of NZ composers for those instruments and string quartet. 

I should have trusted the curators. It was one of the most moving concerts I have heard for a long time. I found tears welling up as the Maori flute (pūtõrino) and another long hollow instrument, both played by Rob Thorne, created sounds that seemed to connect the audience with eternity. He also played a conch instrument that sounded human and ethereal at the same time. These instruments were accompanied by string instruments played by the NZSQ to great effect.

Rob Thorne is an anthropologist and had been part of the group of four (including composer Gillean Whitehead and carver of instruments, Brian Flintoff) who explained the instruments this morning. I found his answers to questions thoughtful and nuanced. He is the sort of teacher you wish for every child (or, in our case, adult).

Addendum (8/2) : how you feel about music has so much to do with context. An Australian told me yesterday that he thought the 'piece' played at the concert was too long  and he was sorry the Maori music had not been more integrated with the western music. In fact there were 6 pieces played one after another (all described in some detail in the program). He looked very doubtful when I said I thought the music had been very successful in integrating the two cultural traditions but that the melding seemed to me to be the western musicians responding to the Maori instruments rather than the other way around.

Nelson fire

Coming back from a concert in a tiny church at Lake Rotoiti, we saw smoke  billowing from the hills nearby.

Poor Nelson. The sky is now orange, covered in smoke from a huge uncontrolled fire in  nearby Wakefield. The country is tinder dry as there has been no rain since Christmas.

Wednesday: the fire has doubled overnight with four farmhouses lost.  One of my concert seat neighbours got a message yesterday not to come home. The fire feels very close.

Smoke over Nelson yesterday afternoon

Hungarian pianist duo Dénes Vágon/Izabella Simon

While I am in Nelson I am sketching the musicians, especially Dénes Várjon and Izabella Simon, both pianists from Hungary whom I had met previously at the Maribor Music Festival in Slovenia (such a pretty and musically interesting place).

Dénes Várjon plays

The NZ Listener has published an article about them as they are the lead act for the Festival. They are travelling with their eight year old daughter and plan to explore New Zealand while they are here.

Wooden ceiling, good acoustics

The auditorium at the Nelson School of Music is an amazing structure, a 'heritage' auditorium opened in 1901 and known for its good acoustics.  It has a painted wooden ceiling that curves inwards towards the front where an organ is installed and makes you feel as if you are sitting in a large boat

I sat in a back row for the talk this morning, (an interesting interview with the Jerusalem Quartet conducted by a member of the NZ String Quartet) and can confirm that the acoustic is good.

Heritage auditorium at NCMA Nelson

Adam Festival 2019 opens

Adam Festival Facebook post

The organisers of the Adam Chamber Music festival in Nelson can be proud of themselves. They produced a wonderful opening concert.

Apparently it was sold out almost immediately. Their solution to all the extra requests for tickets was to add 80 seats behind the stage. It worked well and those who got the late tickets had a great close up view of the musicians.

Nelson Adam Festival

Nelson is a pretty place and just the right size for a pleasant existence. Big enough the house a school of music (what else is important?) but small enough to make driving and parking a dream, full of interesting shops and artsy people.

I am in Nelson for the 10 day Adam Chamber Music Festival which starts in a bit over an hour, staying a convenient two block stroll from the music hall.

The heat wave that has engulfed New Zealand had not  been so bad here, 26C and muggy but it cools down at  night. Just perfect for music making folk ( and everyone else).

Nelson Center for Musical Arts

Isel Park in Nelson

Nelson is dry and brown, apart from the vineyards with their rows of unnervingly green vines.

The picture below was taken in Isel Park in Stoke, a southern suburb of Nelson divided by  the road which leads south to Murchison and the West Coast. Isel Park ist a hidden gem, an historic house with a beautiful garden, enormous trees and wide, now brown, lawns.

Isel Park. The figure under the tree shows how big it is.

Two southerly storms over recent years decimated the place, blowing over many of these enormous giants not used to being so buffeted. I suppose the drought will weaken the hold of the remaining trees.

Agapanthus flowers are flowering everywhere in Nelson, including Isel Park

A stream through the park idyll.

Birdseye views

On a clear day, a flight from Wellington to Nelson offers wonderful views of the terrain below. The plane is small and flies low enough for good visibility.

The plane takes 40 passengers  plus hostess

Leaving Wellington

Leaving the north island

South island, heading for Nelson

The photos were taken by my seat neighbour, a young Dutch woman on a two year work visa. She was snapping photos out of the window so I handed her my phone and she took a few for me as well.

Pomegranate

I planted a pomegranate last autumn. It likes its garden spot and has produced a good lot of growth. Now it has a single flower.

Does a pomegranate need fertilising I wonder, or will this flower become a fruit regardless? 

Another heat wave

Hotter than hot, that's what it is for most of south eastern Australia today. Luckily for me I live near the cooling coast but even here it is hot, not only hot but very humid which makes the heat oppressive. I don't know how folks without air conditioning manage. Sometimes they don't, mortality rates rise during heatwaves.

I write this at 7:30 am.  Fans are whirring, the breadmaker has been transferred to a shelf outside as it generates so much heat and I sit reading that insects are disappearing and wondering at the foolishness of the human race.

Breadmaker on a shelf outside

Blueberries

Blueberries taste so sweet when they are from your own garden

My blueberry bush is still tiny, but over the past two weeks whenever I've walked by I have eaten a few blueberries. Today there was a whole handful ready for picking.

Small bushes planted on poor sandy soil can be  surprisingly productive. I planted a loganberry vine 18 months ago. Last summer it bore about 20 fruit but this year it was covered with fruit. I had so many loganberries I made a kilo of them into jam.

Loganberries

Loganberry jam

The lady with the brolly

The heatwave has passed thankfully and today is cool and wet. The lady with the brolly came for an early morning walk with me today.

Heat wave

It is 35.3C at 10:30am. What is this heat good for? Painting and varnishing picture frames, that's what. My frame dried so quickly I could rehang the painting within the hour.

Painted and varnished ...

... and hung.