Keep Up With the Play
Welcoming two incredible conductors to Whakatipu Music Festival

Welcoming two incredible conductors to Whakatipu Music Festival

2025 Whakatipu Music Festival Welcoming two incredible conductors: Euan Safey and Reuben Brown In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter. About Reuben: Hailing from the deep south of Aotearoa New Zealand, Reuben Brown is the 2025 NZ Assistant Conductor-in-Residence, where he will debut with the Auckland Philharmonia, Christchurch…

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Our Kiwi vocalists return: Felicity Tomkins and Austin Haynes

Our Kiwi vocalists return: Felicity Tomkins and Austin Haynes

2025 Whakatipu Music Festival Our Kiwi vocalists return home: Austin Haynes and Felicity Tomkins In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter. About Austin: Austin Haynes is a countertenor, poet, translator and researcher originally from Kā Muriwai/Arrowtown. He grew up between there and Narrm/Melbourne. In 2019 he moved to…

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Introducing our Young Artists: Esther Oh and Sarah Lee

Introducing our Young Artists: Esther Oh and Sarah Lee

2025 Whakatipu Music Festival Introducing our Young Artists: Violinists Esther Oh and Sarah Lee In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter. About Esther: 20-year-old Esther Oh was born in New Zealand and is in their second year studying violin and conducting at the University of Auckland. Picking up…

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Introducing our Young Artists: Otis Prescott-Mason and Yixuan (William) Sun

Introducing our Young Artists: Otis Prescott-Mason and Yixuan (William) Sun

2025 Whakatipu Music Festival Introducing our Young Artists: Otis Prescott-Mason and Yixuan (William) Sun In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter. Otis Prescott-Mason: Otis Prescott-Mason is a Wellington-born pianist who began his piano studies with Erin Taylor at the age of five. He is currently studying classical performance piano at…

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Introducing our Young Artists: Tal Amoore and Yuxin Chen

Introducing our Young Artists: Tal Amoore and Yuxin Chen

2025 Whakatipu Music Festival Introducing our Young Artists: Violists Tal Amoore and Yuxin Chen. In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter. About Tal: Born in Sydney and based in Aotearoa, violist Tal Amoore a recipient of the NZSM Director’s Award, he is completing his Bachelor of Music at…

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National String Competition – Sarah Watkins and Gracie Francis
Sarah Watkins and Gracie Francis

National String Competition – Sarah Watkins and Gracie Francis

We sat down with Sarah Watkins and Gracie Francis – our collaborative pianists for the 2024 National String Competition - to talk about what it’s like to work with a large number of young artists with a limited amount of rehearsal time…the challenges, the joys and the myriad of things that both competitor and accompanist learn through the process. How are you feeling about being one of the collaborative pianists for the 2024 National String Competition? Sarah: First…

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Keep Up With The Play – Jenny’s Winners Tour Blog #3

Keep Up With The Play – Jenny’s Winners Tour Blog #3

12 November 2024 Last Tuesday we played a concert in Dunedin and the composer Gillian Whitehead was actually in the audience. I'm playing one of her pieces called Bright Silence and I got to meet her backstage. She was so warm and genuine and I'm really happy that I got to meet her. After Dunedin we went to Christchurch for two days then flew to New Plymouth for a concert on Friday. That was a different experience. The…

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Keep Up With The Play – Jenny’s Winners Tour blog #2
Jenny and Jeongwhan at The Hills

Keep Up With The Play – Jenny’s Winners Tour blog #2

Tuesday 5 November Earlier this week we performed in Invercargill, Christchurch and Nelson. The Opera House in Invercargill was so dark that I couldn’t see the audience so I imagined that I was an opera singer on stage. The next morning, I had a 6am Zoom class in writing short fiction for my Bachelor of Music degree at Juilliard. There’s only a certain number of classes we can miss each semester so my teacher kindly agreed to let…

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