The Asia Pacific Festival, Wellington has always been a major highlight of city’s cultural calendar. The festival brings together more than 23 countries and welcomes on the stage musicians from Korea, China, Iran, Australia, Indonesia, United States of America and of course New Zealand.
The Festival programme provides a milieu where artists from different countries and from different streams of performing arts, be it traditional or contemporary can exhibit their talent next to each other. It is only here in Asia Pacific Festival, Wellington that connoisseurs can hear the sound of the ancient Chinese zither (qin) played beside a contemporary quartet played by the New Zealand String Quartet and the sound of the Korean oboe (piri) played alongside saxophone quartet Saxcess. Not only that, music lovers can also enjoy an astonishing one-person Korean opera (Pansori) performance beside ‘Spinning Mountain’ a new work utilizing Indonesian shadow puppetry and gamelan by New Zealand composer Gareth Farr.
The Asia Pacific Festival, Wellington is among some of the most revered platform for a rich and multi cultural programme.
Asia Pacific Festival, Wellington highlights include:
- New Zealand Symphony Orchestra – 2 concerts, Michael Fowler Centre:
'Asian Voices'
- International Lunch-time Concert Series: 7 concerts, St Andrews on the Terrace:
- Asia-Pacific Music-Theatre: 2 performances, Te Whaea: National Dance and Drama Centre
Each of these Asia Pacific Festival evenings features an extravagant paradigm of three different styles of music-theatre with very different cultural backgrounds.
- Do not miss the extraordinary new production utilizing Indonesian shadow puppetry with score given by none other than New Zealand’s Gareth Farr (who will also be performing gamelan) and Wayan Yudane.
- The one-man show- one-person opera by Korean Pansori singer Park Aeri accompanied by traditional Korean percussion is a must watch for every one.
- Listen to the melodious rendition of an excerpt from a new opera by Shen Nalin based on the poems of Chinese poet Gu Cheng, who came to live in New Zealand.
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