Our Artistic Vision for AWE 2022
A festival of chamber music in the heart of the Southern Alps. But what exactly does that offer?
At AWE, we love exploring the endless possible answers to that question. We believe that an engaging and powerful concert atmosphere is the sum of many parts: while the musicians and the music they play may be the summit, inviting our listeners to climb the mountain with us is a crucial and active part of the experience from both sides.
As a music festival, we have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in our local communities. But more than this, we also have the opportunity to build a community of enthusiastic listeners, connected by our deep appreciation of classical music and our curiosity at its potential to connect us all.
Great composers and masterpieces prove their communicative power as they continue to connect and inspire successive generations. These musical works connect us with each other through the shared experience of performance, having touched countless others who too, have loved and found meaning in this music.
These composers conjure acoustic experiences that have the potential to be transcendental for their audiences. However, unlike many visual arts and other physical art forms, these musical masterworks only exist through the special connection forged between musician and listener in a live-concert experience.
As listeners, there is an open invitation in every musical performance for us to find our own personal meaning in each piece of music.
What we strive to offer our audiences
Our audience is at the forefront of our mind when we create the programme, and we relish the challenge of presenting live-performances to our audiences in new and engaging ways. Whether joining us for one or all of our performances, listeners of all ages and backgrounds will have a chance to find their own personal relevance in the music and festival experience. We encourage our listeners to join us with open ears and minds, to trust the process, and to experience their own reactions to these highly connective works on a journey spanning multiple performances, programmes, and festivals.
We strive to creatively curate as much as we can of the festival experience, and use everything at our disposal to build towards the musical exploration in each performance. In the Queenstown Lakes region, we are blessed with some of New Zealand’s most awe-inspiring surroundings - mountains and lakes, valleys and basins that bring an incomparable energy to the experience everywhere you look.
This approach has led us to a central theme for each year’s festival programme. With all of that said, I’m excited to share a little more about the threads that bind our AWE 2022 programme together.
The 2022 Programme: Exploring Solitude and Togetherness
This year, our theme for the AWE Festival is Solitude & Togetherness, with special regard to the crucial role they play in the creative process. As with our inaugural Festival last year, all our programmes for AWE 2022 are interlinked and pay particular attention to the relationships between artists and how they inspire one another. These links break down into three different threads, involving both our Solitude & Togetherness theme, and our AWE 2022 composer in residence, Gareth Farr.
The concept of ‘Solitude’ inspires many different feelings and definitions, depending on your perspective. Almost certainly, it is something most of us will have experienced over the past two challenging years with Covid-19. While loneliness may be the first facet of solitude that comes to mind, our programme also examines some of the other aspects: what solitude can provoke and inspire in each of us, how solitude develops relationships between individuals, and the power of communication that can lead to us feeling connected, or apart from, one another.
To help our listeners connect with these focal points, we have assigned waypoints, or key ideas, to each concert. These act as guiding steps along the journey, helping you explore the different emotions woven into each programme's musical works. We look forward to guiding our audience through the festival, and we hope these waypoints may contribute some extra food for thought as our listeners experience this powerful music.
Thread 1 - FAE Frei aber einsam - trans. Free but lonely / alone / solitary
‘Frei aber einsam’ was the motto of legendary violinist Joseph Joachim. This inspired a collaborative composition between Schumann, Albert Dietrich and a young Brahms; the FAE Sonata - Frei Aber Einsam/Free But Lonely, Saturday 15 October. This motif also became the foundation of Brahms’ second string quartet - Tranquil Bay, Sunday 9 October.
Joachim made several appearances in AWE 2021 as a close friend of Clara Schumann née Wieck, who was the focal point of our programme last year. Through Joachim and FAE, we have visits from several of this auspicious musical family including Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms (Tranquil Bay - Sunday 9 October) and Felix Mendelssohn (Bloom My Heart - Saturday 8 October)
These composers, along with Mendelssohn and many others, were also part of an important community of artists to which British composer Ethel Smyth felt a powerful belonging and drew inspiration from. Hear her Piano Trio at AWE’s final programme, Into the night on Sunday 16 October.
Thread 2 - Nietzsche
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed that philosophy was the ‘art of transfiguration’, and was one of the first to write about the necessity of solitude in society and the creative process in particular. His writings inspired a generation of artists which included composers Strauss, Mahler, and Schoenberg; whose iconic string sextet Verklarte Nacht (transfigured night) is the work around which our festival programme culminates in Into the Night on Sunday 16 October.
Verklarte Nacht is based on the mystical poem by Richard Dehmel about two lovers walking through a cold moonlit forest. Dehmel’s poetry is delicately woven throughout the festival programme in songs by Alma Mahler and Richard Strauss in Bloom My Heart on 8 October, and Nine Seas Away on 12 October. Richard Strauss’ extraordinary Piano Quartet, written at just 20 years old after first meeting Brahms and Joachim, features in Free But Lonely on Saturday 15 October.
Nietzsche was also deeply passionate about music, often saying “without music, life would be a mistake”. He wrote music throughout his life, and his song “Aus der jugendzeit” features in Nine Seas Away on 12 October.
Thread 3 - AWE 2022 Composer in Residence: Gareth Farr
Our composer in residence this year is the inimitable Gareth Farr. At the heart of AWE’s mission is our commitment to commissioning a new Composer in Residence each year, as well as featuring their music in every performance of the festival. Getting your ears around new, unique musical languages can take years - so we aim to give our audience an opportunity to experience Gareth’s own unique approach to music gradually through each concert of the festival. You can read more about Gareth’s works in the Festival here.
Gareth’s AWE Festival commission is a new duo for violin and cello which will receive its World Premiere in Wānaka at the Tranquil Bay performance on 9 October.
Another highlight will be the live-premiere of Gareth’s “Where will they bury my bones?” for baritone, piano and string quartet. In Gareth’s own words, this work “looks at the way we experience loneliness, distance and disenfranchisement from our natural country and our national life as New Zealanders.” This will be performed during Nine Seas Away on Wednesday 12 October.
There will also be a unique opportunity to meet and get to know Gareth in more detail at our exclusive food, wine and music evening, Sei Solo, at the Cloudy Bay Shed on Thursday 13 October. Here, Gareth’s Wakatipu for solo violin will also be performed, alongside other works.
The At the World’s Edge Festival 2022 will be an incredible, awe-inspiring experience. No matter where in the world you’re from, no matter if you’ve been to a chamber music concert before or not, we would love to share what we do with you. Join us, this October, at the annual AWE Festival.
Come for the unexpected, and we hope you’ll join us for the journey at the world’s edge.
Benjamin Baker - AWE Artistic Director