It has become somewhat of a tradition in Septura to use mealtimes together as an opportunity to discuss our next eating arrangements! Monday evening at The Bresolin was no exception, as we made plans to meet Dave Bremner the following morning for brunch at Goldmine, a true Wellington institution. The hearty breakfast certainly didn’t disappoint […]
Bouyant from another successful show in a rather wet Dunedin, we boarded our airport shuttle and our perky resident driver ‘Starsky’ whisked us off to the airport. On arrival in Wellington we enjoyed a short walk along the stunning Wellington Harbour, described by some as ‘mini Melbourne’. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, and […]
A leisurely 10 am start in Christchurch continued the theme of this being the most relaxed Septura tour in history. To Matt Gee’s chagrin, a couple of us even committed the cardinal sin of being slightly late for the bus – it seems that Kiwi baristas are quite laid back, and the making of the […]
It’s hard to fathom that over a week has passed since we took off from Heathrow. On Friday morning we departed Nelson, NZ with heavy hearts after a very successful residency at the NCMA. We met in the hotel foyer at a very civilised 8:30am before piling into the airport transfer which was kindly arranged […]
On our final day in Nelson we were up bright and early for another rehearsal, this time for our upcoming recording of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. It says a lot about how busy Septura’s members are in their orchestral ‘day jobs’ that the only time we could get everyone together to do this was on the other […]
The morning after our New Zealand debut was gloriously sunny – any fuzzyness from a rather short night’s sleep quickly cleared; Pete was even heard whistling in the shower such was his happy outlook. Group warm-ups kicked the day off at 8am – Matt and Dan gave away their playing secrets, and reduced everyone to […]
After the festivities of the previous evening, the second day of our residency began with Matt Gee bravely volunteering to lead the 8am group warm-up class. Rather unsurprisingly for such an early morning session, the attendance of Septura’s other members – which had been enthusiastically mooted some twelve hours earlier – failed to materialise, as […]
Today our long awaited residency in Nelson begins. Over the next four days we’ll give a performance of our Pilfered Piano programme, coach various young chamber groups, conduct a concert of Gabrieli in the Cathedral and combine together with the students in the final concert in a big Strauss finale. After doing our individual daily […]
We celebrated Easter Sunday with the first rehearsal of our New Zealand tour, at the Centre of Musical Arts in Nelson. To be honest it was a bit of relief to feel slightly human again, and for our lips to have returned to a more normally responsive state. Brass instruments are fairly unique in that […]
The 6th volume in our Naxos series is a homecoming: music by English composers of the 20th century. This is what the press have had to say about it: Cox and Knight display exquisite sensitivity to the originals; they ought to make a pretty penny moonlighting as professional arrangers and film score orchestrators. How these […]