Note Bene: Four Hands, Two Grands, and a Choir
- Date: 31/05/2026 15:00 - 16:30
- Location: St Andrew's on the Terrace
- Tickets: $30/$35/school children free entry
Nota Bene is delighted to welcome you to this concert exploring the partnership between choir and keyboard. In this programme, voices and two pianos meet in a close musical conversation that highlights the colour, energy, and intimacy of choral music alongside piano duet and two piano textures.
At the centre are two major choral works: Brahms’ Nänie and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Written half a century apart and in very different musical languages, both reflect on human vulnerability, loss, and the search for meaning. This idea shapes the entire programme, which moves between grief and consolation, questioning and affirmation, and the human need to give form to experience through sound.
The same concern with transformation and coherence appears in George Enescu’s early Variations for Two Pianos, Op. 5. Written in his teenage years, the work reveals an already confident compositional voice, using variation as a way of building direction and clarity. In the music of René Clausen, heard in Prayer, Psalm 100, and Set Me as a Seal, this search is expressed through close attention to text, with music that closely follows emotional and rhetorical detail, moving from stillness and supplication to joy, intimacy, and reflection. Arvo Pärt’s Da pacem Domine continues this line in a pared back musical language, offering a quiet and focused plea for peace. In contrast, Milhaud’s Scaramouche for two pianos brings wit, exuberance, and outward facing celebration.
We are especially fortunate to be joined by two outstanding Wellington pianists. Catherine Norton is a versatile performer with a strong focus on vocal repertoire and wide experience as an accompanist and recital partner. Gabriela Glapska is a collaborative pianist and chamber musician whose work spans contemporary music, opera, and ensemble performance. Together with the singers of Nota Bene, this collaboration of four hands, two pianos, and choir creates a varied musical journey from reflection and lament to energy and celebration.
