Season 2024
We’re excited to present The Queen’s Closet’s Season 2024, which is focused on development and community. In the current economy, it can be challenging being a performing artist, a performing arts organisation, or an active consumer of the arts. We’ve designed our season to bring colourful, engaging and fun music of the 17th century to as many people as possible in an accessible way; to develop and look after our musicians, particularly those just emerging in the early music scene; and to partner with and support our sister arts organisations in Pōneke and beyond.
We know that, particularly in economic times like these, it can be difficult to prioritise buying concert tickets. So in 2024, we’re working with partners including the Wellington City Council to put on more free performances. This year we introduced our “Waits Band” of shawms and singers, after the model of the English Renaissance town bands, who performed in Cuba Street for CubaDupa, and we’re also working with the Wellington City Council on bringing our Waits Band to the streets of wider Pōneke at the end of the year to contribute to seasonal festivities.
The Queen’s Closet also has a growing relationship with the St Peter’s on Willis church in central Wellington. Over the last year, musicians from The Queen’s Closet have contributed to musical performances as a part of their Sunday morning services. This has provided an important opportunity to introduce up-and-coming musicians to historical performance practices and style, as well as valuable opportunities to put this into practice. On Easter Saturday (30 March 2024), under Gordon’s leadership, a number of The Queen’s Closet’s newest and youngest musicians, with some of our more experienced singers, performed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Salve Regina, and Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater at St Peter’s.
On 4 May, we collaborated with Orchestra Wellington around their first subscriptions concert. In their first subs concert of the season, Orchestra Wellington explored baroque music, and baroque-inspired music, which included a performance of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Instead of an ordinary pre-concert lecture, The Queen’s Closet performed a selection of the source material by Pergolesi and Gallo that Stravinsky used as the basis for Pulcinella.
Over May-June, The Queen’s Closet had French soprano student, Ariane Duclos, in residence with us. We held a special performance of French repertoire with Ariane on 2 June, hosted by St Peter’s on Willis, to start getting everyone in the mood for…
…our fundraiser Gala Ball on 22 June, with the support of Foxglove, who offered us their magnificent ballroom for the evening! This also builds on our recent successes with getting our audience members up and dancing in some of our performances. The Queen’s Closet provided dance music from the 17th century for our guests to enjoy, with food, drink, and general revelry. It was wonderful to see audiences of all ages dressed in their finest, dancing to 17th century music!
Our final major performance of the year will be on 16 November, when we perform with The Tudor Consort as part of a new three-year collaboration between the two groups. The concert, “A Glorious Day,” will include celebratory music from three of Restoration London’s most iconic composers: Dr John Blow, Pelham Humfrey, and Henry Purcell.
We also have a focus on development in 2024. Gordon and Sharon are both studying towards PhDs in musicology at the NZSM, focussed on 17th century musical performance and practice, and in the week of March 11th they visited the University of Canterbury to hold workshops with music students there. We also put on a performance in Christchurch that included members of The Queen’s Closet as well as some local Christchurch musicians.
We were also delighted to be working with the NZSM on lectures and workshops on historical performance and rhetoric, including a recital on 6 September. This was also the first time The Queen’s Closet performed 21st-century music written for the ensemble, by Canterbury composer Luka Reardon.
Gordon and Sharon will also be presenting a paper at the 2024 New Zealand Musicological Society conference, held in Wellington, using The Queen’s Closet as a case study about the application of musicology to enhance audiences’ and performers’ engagement with and enjoyment of music. The Queen’s Closet will be performing in a lecture-recital led by Gordon and Sharon in the Adam Concert Room at the New Zealand School of Music on 8 December.
| Love The Queen’s Closet? Check out some of the ways you can support us! |
With special thanks this season to:
