Source: MIL-OSI Submissions
Source: Hammers & Horsehair
Popular duo Hammers & Horsehair (Douglas Mews – piano and Robert Ibell – cello) begin a national tour this week with a show called ‘Homecoming’. Together with well-known Wellington soprano Rowena Simpson they reimagine a tour made a century ago by Rosina Buckman, a famous New Zealand singer.
In 1922 Blenheim-born soprano Rosina Buckman made a triumphant homecoming tour, bringing with her cellist Adelina Leon and pianist-composer Percy Kahn. Rosina’s farewell concert in London was to an audience of 10,000 in the Royal Albert Hall. Her tour began in Wellington on 15 May 1922 and ended in March 1923 after more than 110 performances across New Zealand and Australia. New Zealanders couldn’t get enough of their homegrown singing superstar.
One hundred years later, Hammers & Horsehair pay tribute to Rosina Buckman and her fellow musicians with a series of concerts across Aptearoa, beginning on Tuesday 23 August in Feilding in a show that celebrates the 90th Anniversary of the Feilding Music Society. The includes centres where Rosina was born (Blenheim) and grew up (Palmerston North, New Plymouth and Apiti).
Hammers & Horsehair will perform period classics from the Buckman tour such as “Waiata Poi” by Alfred Hill and “Love’s a Merchant” by Molly Carew for soprano & piano, Percy Kahn’s own arrangement of his “Ave Maria” for soprano, cello & keyboard, Rimsky Korsakov’s “Chanson Indoue”, Dvorak’s “Humoresque” and Moskowski’s “Guitarre” for cello & piano. The programme also includes some of their own favourites. The various musical items in this lively concert are interspersed with anecdotes from the 1922/3 tour, comparing touring life then and now and incorporating appropriate local or personal history.
The 2022 tour dates are:
Tue 23 August – Feilding
Wed 24 August – Palmerston North
Thu 25 August – Hawera
Fri 26 August – New Plymouth
Sat 27 August – Te Awamutu
Sun 28 August – Tauranga
Sun 23 October – Greytown
Tue 25 October – Reefton
Wed 26 October – Greymouth
Thu 27 October – Rangiora
Fri 28 October – Timaru
Sat 29 October – Christchurch
2023 dates include Wellington, Apiti, Blenheim, Kerikeri and Auckland. For more see: http://hammersandhorsehair.nz
