Amiki Trio at the Globe

The Globe Sunday Matinee concert on March 24 features three of Wellington’s most distinguished concert musicians – soprano Barbara Paterson, flute player Karen Batten, and pianist Rachel Thomson. The three of them are all itinerant teachers at Marsden School. Other musical activities that contribute to the busy lives of these three freelancers are teaching, orchestral performance, and choir direction.
Rachel Thomson is an examiner for Trinity College of London, which sees her travelling and performing throughout the motu.

Barbara Paterson is currently an Artist Teacher of Classical Voice at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music. She teaches privately and also conducts the Capital Choir.
Karen Batten’s involvement with Orchestra Wellington provides her with plenty of challenging orchestral repertoire, and she is also a member of the RNZAF Band.

A corridor conversation sparked a desire to make music together, and led to the formation of the Amiki Trio. Amiki in Maori means to tell a story in detail. The theme of the trio’s Palmerston North concert is Tales of Love and Enchantment.

Ravel’s Enchanted Flute opens the programme. The sensuousness of this piece continues with Debussy’s setting of short poems that narrate the fictional story of Bilitis, a young woman in ancient Greece who explores her sexuality. The stunningly brilliant flute sonata of Carl Reinecke is based on a German romantic tale of Undine, a water spirit, who longs for an immortal soul, which can only be obtained through true love with a mortal man.

Three colourful Irish folk songs for voice and flute by American composer John Corigliano allow us to be grounded for a time before the concert concludes with Schubert’s much loved The Shepherd on the Rock. In this a lonely shepherd is on a mountain filled with longing for his absent sweetheart, and chooses to make his way to find her.
In this concert voice, flute and piano blend and contrast, evoking the singing of birds, the sighing of a shepherd and the swirling of waters around a water nymph.

Admission is by donation, recommended from $5.