Neild Dann Trio Concert

After several months following the suspension of the Globe Sunday Matinee series because of the Covid-19 lock-down, patrons will be pleased to hear that it is resuming on August 30 with a concert by a trio of performer whose home base is in Palmerston North.

Diana Neild studied flute many years ago with Amelia Skinner and Nancy Luther Jara and has loved sharing music in the community ever since. She plays regularly in Trio Bella, functions band Moxy, newly-formed saxophone quartet Palmy Sweethearts, and with her own family. Her latest children’s picture-book ‘Daddy Monster ABC’ has just been released.

David Neild attended Freyberg High School, where he first began playing chamber music. He completed a BMus in piano at the New Zealand School of Music, studying with Richard Mapp and spending a semester studying in North Carolina on exchange. Following his piano studies, David moved on to law and graduated from Victoria with an LLM. He now works in Wellington, where he enjoys dancing to Aretha Franklin with two-year old niece Georgia.

Cellist Joanna Dann has just completed her bachelor of music in cello with James Tennant at the University of Waikato. She made her way through the Manawatu orchestras throughout primary and high school, has played in the National Youth Orchestra for 3 seasons and participated in the Adam summer school for chamber music. She plays in Trio Bella, for other groups and orchestras as a free-lance cellist, and teaches cello in Palmerston North and Wellington.

The musicians are performing a programme with a very Romantic flavour, as is appropriate to lift the spirits as we emerge from a unique winter.

The Trio for piano, flute and cello by Weber is one of his most substantial chamber pieces. It was written as a result of a friendship Weber developed with a flute player and a cellist, and he evidently wrote it as a souvenir of convivial musical evenings held by the three.

Gabriel Fauré’s best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones. Only two years prior to writing his famous Requiem Faure wrote Fantasie Op. 79 for flute, which was used as an examination piece by the Conservatoire de Paris. Although Fauré frequently complained to friends about how much he despised the piece, it has become somewhat of a staple in the flute repertoire and one of the most popular of Faure’s pieces.

Rachmaninov wrote his sonata for cello and piano just before his second piano concerto, and the sonata has much in common with that piece, particularly in the demands that is makes on the pianist as well as the cellist, and in its rich cinematic writing. Joanna Dann and David Neild will perform the slow movement which is one of Rachmaninov’s most heart-felt pieces.

The group will also play a Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano by Bohuslav Martinu. Martinu is a Czech composer who died in 1959 and whose music has a blend of French and Czech influences. He moved to Paris in 1923, and even in those years when he felt remorse over his separation from his native land, his music tended to display an underlying optimism. He moved to America in March of 1941. He composed there this piece which combines serious reflection with more light-hearted animation.

Admission is by donation, recommended from $5.