AWE Festival 2024
QUEENSTOWN LAKES | OCTOBER 2024
An exploration of people and place where folk and classical collide. A prism that took our shared stories, heritage and history, dispersing them through the kaleidoscopic sounds of chamber music. Composer to performer, performer to community and the refraction of perspectives within.
AWE 2024 opened with Dispersion, beginning the journey at the beating heart and creative confluence of Queenstown, Te Atamira. Both Dispersion and Refraction were inspired by this dramatic location, featuring a meeting of European and Asian folk music. Also in Queenstown, Out of Doors presented a uniquely piano-focused programme journeying through folk-inspired music from Hungary, England and the USA.
AWE’s return to Bannockburn introduced new sounds for AWE, with Klezmer music. Fantazi drew on folk music’s connection to land and language. The clarinet is a primary instrument in Klezmer, likely for its ability to emulate the human voice, and as such was featured throughout the programme.
Equinox further explored folk influences in art and music, highlighting the natural opposition of light and dark. This was explored with daylight, twilight, and evening performances in the stunning surrounds of Cromwell’s Cloudy Bay Shed.
The festival landed in Wānaka with Ængles, exploring the melting pot of folk influences that defined the sounds of the United Kingdom in the 20th century. Finally, Prism concluded the journey with an exploration of the composer as a prism through which music refracts, heard through beloved pieces from Vienna, the19th-century musical epicentre where Eastern and Western cultures met.
At the World’s Edge
Festival 2023
Central Lakes | October 2023
A powerful exploration of identity, of perspectives and of cultural dimensions through the binding lens of classical music in New Zealand.
A musical journey through the unmatched beauty of the Queenstown Lakes, the third AWE Festival began in Queenstown with Sono, introducing a world of exploration and identity. Travelling for the first time to Bannockburn, Hommàge looked back to inspire new innovations before moving on to Cromwell’s Cloudy Bay Shed for the year’s highly sought-after music and wine pairing event, Muzikální.
Returning to Queenstown, Immemorial offered an emotionally mesmerising programme, before the journey culminated in Wānaka’s stunning Rippon Winery for the final two programmes in our exploration of home, culture and identity, Homeland and Manifesto.
The 2024 Festival Artists included some of NZ’s most admired musicians playing alongside international talents, such as ‘trailblazing artist’ Jordan Bak from the USA, the ‘musical Bear Grylls’ of British horn playing Ben Goldscheider, and ‘soulful, refined and poetic’ cellist Alice Neary.
In tandem with our Festival programme, AWE+ introduced a series of free events exploring deeper the lives and music of our artists. We were thrilled to showcase our Sei Solo: Violin & Dance performance, combining music and dance in a breathtaking new dimension.
At the World’s Edge
Festival 2022
Central Lakes | October 2022
The first steps of the journey took place in Wānaka, beginning with Bloom my heart and Tranquil Bay. From there, Nine Seas Away presented our Emerging Artists side-by-side with AWE Festival Artists in a mid-week Queenstown performance.
Sei Solo followed in Cromwell, offering intimate solo and duo performances matched with fine wine throughout the evening at the Cloudy Bay Shed. Free But Lonely and Into the Night concluded the journey in Queenstown the following weekend.
In conjunction with our Festival Performances, the festival also included a series of free community events and chamber music concerts in Queenstown.
Six intertwined programmes, thirty-one musical works, each charting a waypoint along our exploration into the roles that solitude and togetherness play in the creative process.
At the World’s Edge
Festival 2021
Central Lakes | October 2021
Where it all began
Paving the way for many more to come, the inaugural At the World’s Edge Festival 2021 forged connections and shared experiences, providing a new stage for classical music in our beautiful region.
Nestled among the lakes, rivers and mountains of Central Otago and connected by their unique positions in the strikingly beautiful Southern Alps of New Zealand lie three humble communities: Queenstown, Wānaka and Cromwell.
With the Southern Alps as our starting point, the inaugural AWE Festival explored connections between artists, young and old, and how mutual admiration, collaborative ideas and inspiration can yield powerful results in the realm of chamber music and composition.
Travelling through our stunning region, audiences immersed themselves in the music of Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Wieck; a famously close circle of artists with a fascinating web of emotional and artistic connections. Played alongside were works by our composer in residence, Salina Fisher, and several works by composers that inspired and influenced her.
