Illuminating North America

The first of the two-day New Zealand in L.A. festival at the city’s REDCAT theatre featured eight chamber and solo works by New Zealand composers and renowned performer on Maori instruments, Richard Nunns. Los Angeles Times reviewer Mark Swed wrote: “This festival is the inspiration of Mark Menzies, a CalArts violinist from New Zealand with exceptional new music chops. Every work was interesting, unusual, communicative, convincingly performed and new to North America. Christopher Cree Brown’s duo for violin (Menzies) and cello (Erica Duke-Kirkpatrick) might have been a mating call from a curious, previously unknown species. Victoria Kelly’s dramatically glacial piano trio ‘Sono’ completed the impressive and illuminating program.”