Sunday 18th February at 2.30pm

What better way could there be to open our 40th Anniversary season than with a recital from New Zealand’s greatest and most admired pianist? Michael Houstoun has being entrancing the Waikanae Music Society audience with his wonderful playing ever since his first visit here in 1986 when, incidentally, he played the same Mozart sonata that he will perform this year. Since than he has brought us such delights as Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Schubert’s Winterreise Song Cycle in an unforgettable partnership with tenor Keith Lewis, numerous Beethoven Sonatas, and when our new Fazioli piano arrived in 2011, Michael was our pianist of choice to be the first to play it.

This year’s recital will open with the second of Bach’s English Suites, a substantial and exuberantly good-natured work. That will be followed by the first helping of what will be for many the main delight of this performance – a rare chance to hear all four of Chopin’s Ballades in one concert. After the interval, Mozart’s A minor Sonata, a dramatic and often tragic-sounding work that is considered to be one of his finest, will lead to a second helping of the supreme romantic masterpieces that are Chopin’s Ballades.

This concert is generously sponsored by