JAVS Summer 2001

49

FROM THE INTERNATIONAL VIOLA SOCIETY

rousing performance of Harold in Italy with Donald Mcinnes in, for him, a familiar role of the protagonist. In all, thirty violists performed during the congress with the normal concerts, recitals, masterclasses, lectures, panels and luthier exhi bition. But there were several distinctive fea tures of this congress that our co-hosts, Michael Vidulich, President of the Australian and New Zealand Viola Society, and Donald Maurice, program manager, were able to achieve. There were a goodly number of first per formances including commissioned works by New Zealand composers for carillon and massed violists and a composition played by a gamelan orchestra of thirteen players and sev enty violists! There were an unprecedented number of concerts with orchestral accompa niment and great instrumental diversity shown throughout the congress. The generous support of local professional violists was in evidence. Congress participants, in unprecedented fashion, were hosted to a "state" dinner in the national Parliament building with plenty of "brass" in attendance, including the national associate minister for the arts and the chancel lor of Massey University, a school greatly sup portive of this congress. We violists enjoyed a very elevated feeling. Maurice was honored by the IVS with the bestowal of the Silver Clef, Vidulich with a citation in crystal, and Tully Potter (in absentia) for his dedicated advocacy of the viola, with an honorary membership in the IVS. As at the conclusion of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, one had the feeling that interests here in another antipodean outpost were bent on demonstrating that, yes, despite geograph ical distance, we belong also to mainstream

What an opening day! A real Congress launcher. It all started with a Powhiri, the tra ditional Maori welcome with a chieftain pre siding, surrounded by his entourage of chant ing Maori maidens and fierce looking and sounding warriors with occasional and obliga tory protruding tongues-all in native cos tume. After the initial shouting, stamping, and intimidating war-like whoops, after letting the guest pakehas (foreigners) know who was in charge, things quieted, and following the chieftain's long oratory, it all became down right sedate. Then came a peaceful segue where we violists were given the chance to offer our greeting and acknowledge our being welcomed and honored in the ancient Maori land of Aotearoa among the descendants of the "seven canoes." The Maoris touched noses (hongi) two times each with scores of violists as they passed by and exchanged the breath of life. The afternoon brought two "International Concerts" at Massey University i.n which an array of fifteen violists, representing different nationalities, displayed their talents through music of their particular countries. That evening, a concert by the fine New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, directed by Marc Decio Taddei, was held in the impressive Michael Fowler Centre in the downtown of New Zealand's capital city. Brahms' Serenade No. 2, sans violins, and with an augmented viola section for the occasion sitting in the normal violin positions, opened the concert. This work, sometimes perceived as rather dull, was anything but, the performance marked by beautiful wind playing. Csaba Erdelyi fol lowed persuasively with the Bartok Viola Concerto in his personal emendations to the solo part as well as the orchestration. Concluding the opening night program was a