Chamber Music Weekend, NZ International Arts Festival, reviewed by Garth Wilshere

THE Borodin String Quartet presented their Russian Legacy programme last Saturday in association with Chamber Music New Zealand.
They play with brilliant musicality, although there was a hint of  tiredness in their presentation of Borodin’s Quartet No. 2.
Their Shostakovich String Quartet No 8 was exciting, although I would have liked more bite in their interpretation.
Sunday night was a recital by NZ tenor Keith Lewis sympathetically accompanied by Michael Houstoun. The meat of the first half was Jenny McLeod’s new song cycle Peaks of Cloud to Janet Frame poems, whose quirky words delighted in McLeod’s intriguing settings.
But it was in the Britten cycle On This Island (words W. H. Auden) that Lewis truly shone with great tonal colour.
During the weekend the excellent NZ Trio presented movements from Beethoven, Australian Ross Edwards, Dvorák, Chen Yi and Ravel trios and Dadson’s Firestarters, in his recognisable style. David Downes’ Kingdom was clever with delicious, dark fantasies in his animated film to accompany the live music score.
 The NZ String quartet were terrific in their Berg String Quartet Op. 3, which matched well the style of Ross Harris’s new work, setting Vincent O’Sullivan words in an affecting song cycle The Abiding Tides; reflections on ships sinking at sea, sung with great clarity and emotional power by soprano Jenny Wollerman.
For children, Dirty Beasts and Other Stories was fun from Diedre Irons, wind quintet Zephyr and friends, who dressed up colourfully and clowned enjoyably while playing with great style.