<<  -- 3 --  Howard Smith    FLAIR AND FIDELITY

While each work required the utmost of all four musicians there were necessarily occasions when an extra burden fell upon the leader and Beijing/Guangzhou-trained violinist Haihong Liu proved her impressive leadership capabilities throughout.

A delightful encore -- Fan Shen Dao Qing ('Turn Around') arranged from an ancient Chinese folk song by A Ke Jian and Zheng De Reng -- pitched somewhere between an American 'Hoe Down' and an up-tempo 'Viennese Polka' -- brought the concert to a dazzling conclusion with it's captivating mix of champagne, romance and sheer, ebullient fun.

This year Greytown Music Club offers two further concerts by internationally renowned artists. On Wednesday 9 August 2006 Russian pianist Oleg Marshev performs works of Beethoven, Schubert and Rachmaninoff and on Saturday 9 September the spectacular Kazakh virtuoso violinist Marat Bisengaliev may be heard; first in Kuranui College Auditorium in works of Bach, Franck, Beethoven, Serkebayev, Jenkins, Elgar, de Falla and Paganini with top New Zealand pianist Diedre Irons, and on Friday 6 October in Masterton Town Hall he plays Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto with the Vector Wellington Orchestra (formerly Wellington Sinfonia).