...The [Dvorak] was a well-chosen conclusion, and the ensemble brought the best of their talent and leadership to the fore in their rousing finish to the programme, earning them very enthusiastic applause and lots of smiling faces....
(Bruce Carlsson, Reviewer of Kerikeri concert, 24/3/24)
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - 9:09pm

The Aroha String Quartet are champions of new music and are always ready to try something new, but performing a world premiere in a steam railway museum was adventurous even by their standards! When the quartet was in Austria for the International Summer Academy last August they gave the first performance of a work especially written for them by the young Hungarian composer Peter Tornyai. The single movement string quintet takes its inspiration from Schubert's remarkable Quintet in C but while it contains quotations from Schubert, its extensive use of scordatura (retuning) and harmonics creates a very different sound world, with fascinating, earcatching textures and sonorities.

The first performance of the quintet was held on a railway platform amongst steam engines in the Sudbahnmuseum train museum. Listen out for the first New Zealand performances of the work in 2012.