Music performance with a difference by visiting Wellington duo

Colin Decio and Ingrid Prosser will present an afternoon of music and poetry in Whanganui this month. Photo/Supplied

The Wanganui Music Society will present a performance with a difference this month.

Ingrid Prosser and Colin Decio will combine poetry and music in a concert that should appeal to a wide audience.

Decio is a pianist and composer who has spent most of his life in England, living in New Zealand since late 2016.

He has performed throughout the UK as both a soloist and accompanist.

His award-winning compositions cover the whole range of instruments and voices – from symphonies to sonatas to songs.

Prosser is a New Zealander but has spent many years living and studying in the UK.

She describes herself as a singer specialising in medieval music and a performance poet, of both her own and others' poetry.

She has published a volume of poems and has a second volume in preparation.

Her performance style is theatrical, highlighting the close connection between spoken and sung words.

Prosser and Decio perform together regularly in programmes of classical piano music and poetry from their home base in Wellington, including the lunchtime concert series.

They also visit schools to perform Sergei Prokofiev's Peter & the Wolf.

The duo select poetry to complement the music and the two are interspersed.

Their Whanganui concert will include piano pieces by Bach, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Haydn, Ravel, Poulenc and Prokofiev.

Prosser will read her own poetry and well-known poems by Edward Lear, John Masefield, Walter de la Mare and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

There will also be poems by EE Cummings and John Drinkwater.

Tickets are available from the Royal Wanganui Opera House and at the door.

Adults $20, seniors $15, Music Society members $10 and students $5.

Piano & Poetry: Ingrid Prosser and Colin Decio. Sunday, June 30 at 2pm. St Paul's Worship Centre, Cooks St. Adult $20, seniors $15, school student $5, Music Society member $10. Book at Royal Wanganui Opera House, 69 St Hill St, Ph 06 349 0511.