Globe Sunday Matinee Concert to feature Andrew Atkins and Caitlin Morris

Caitlin Morris and Andrew Atkins will play Chopin's sonata for cello and piano in Palmerston North this Sunday. Photo / Lucalia Photography

This Sunday's Globe matinee concert features two young musicians who have already made a mark in New Zealand concert music.

Pianist Andrew Atkins was raised in Palmerston North and was initially taught by Guy Donaldson. He went on to study piano under the tuition of Dr Jian Liu and Richard Mapp.

He performed Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto with the Manawatū Sinfonia in 2013, Grieg's Piano Concerto with Tawa Orchestra in 2014, and Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto with the Manawatū Sinfonia in 2019 and 2021 respectively.

Atkins completed his Graduate Diploma in Conducting (2017) under the tuition of Kenneth Young and has gone on to develop a love and passion for conducting that gained him the position of assistant conductor to Orchestra Wellington 2017-18. He has also conducted the Manawatū Sinfonia, Kapiti Concert Orchestra, Wellington Chamber Orchestra and the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra. He is the musical director of the Wairarapa Singers.

Andrew's wife Caitlin Morris will be making her first appearance in the Globe Sunday Matinee series alongside Atkins. The cellist studied at the New Zealand School of Music under the esteemed tuition of Inbal Megiddo and Rolf Gjelsten. Morris also has a passion for composition and completed a Masters in Fine Arts in Music in 2018. She has performed as cello soloist with the Nelson Symphony Orchestra, Marlborough Civic Orchestra, Tawa Orchestra and the Wairarapa Community Orchestra.

Most recently Morris composed and recorded music for the New Zealand film A Girl Called Elvis, which is to be released in festivals this year. She teaches string instruments throughout Wairarapa and one of the couple's projects last year was launching the Wairarapa Youth Orchestra.

The concert will feature a rare performance of Frederic Chopin's sonata for cello and piano. The sonata is one of only nine works Chopin published during his lifetime that was written for instruments other than piano (although the piano still appears in every work he wrote). It was the last piece Chopin published or performed. On his death bed he asked for it to be played, but could not bear to hear more than the opening bars. The sonata was a great favourite of Katherine Mansfield, who was a cellist of near-professional ability.

The concert will include three pieces by East European composers, two of which have relevance for these difficult times.

After World War II and the Soviet occupation of Romania, Romanian composer George Enescu chose to remain in Paris. Many of his works were influenced by Romanian folk music. Pablo Casals described Enescu as "the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart" and "one of the greatest geniuses of modern music". Yehudi Menuhin, Enescu's most famous pupil, described Enescu as "the most extraordinary human being, the greatest musician and the most formative influence" he had ever experienced.

Atkins made an impression in Palmerston North in his playing of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto in 2019. Rachmaninov composed that piece in 1901, the same year he wrote his sonata for cello and piano. The two works have clear connections in expression and musical ideas. The slow movement that will feature in this programme is a piece of extraordinary lyricism and sadness.

The concert concludes with a light piece by Ukrainian composer and pianist Nikolai Kapustin, whose compositions fuse the traditions of both classical piano repertoire and improvisational jazz.

The Details
What: Globe Sunday Matinee Concert
When: Sunday, March 20, 2.30pm
Where: Globe Theatre
Tickets: Admission is by donation, recommended from $5.