Performer

Profile

The New Zealand Clarinet Quartet (The Plight of the Dischords) was formed in late 2009 to perform project based concerts of mainly New Zealand music. In March 2010, their highly successful debut ‘Microscore Madness’ concert consisted of 40 new short pieces, mainly by New Zealand composers. A live recording of this concert can be heard at the SOUNZ library.

The group also performed a selection of the microscores in the NZSM’s prestigious ‘Fridays at Five’ series at the Ilott Theatre in July 2010, and recorded quartets by NZ composers Chris Adams and Robert Burch.

In the same year, in conjunction with the NZSM, they performed Evan Ziporyn’s ‘Hive’ and Robert Burch’s ‘Little Suite’ [NZ] in a masterclass and concert collaboration with Australian bass clarinetist, Richard Haynes.

The NZ Clarinet Quartet has recently returned from Los Angeles, where it gave premier performances of 2 New Zealand pieces commissioned by Creative New Zealand [works by Phil Brownlee and Natalie Hunt] at the International Clarinet Association’s ClarinetFest, 2011. The new works were received with great enthusiasm, as was the case with subsequent performances at the Hunter Chamber Series at Victoria University, Wellington in August 2011.