Arts Centre Chamber Series: From Adelaide to Christchurch

This inaugural concert launching a partnership between UC Music and the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium of Music features Adelaide faculty Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Edith Salzmann, and Elizabeth Layton, hosted by UC Head of Performance Mark Menzies and Christchurch based pianist, Michael Endres.

The performance, ranging from duos to the full ensemble, features music by Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms as well as the premiere of “The Crooked Straight”, a piano quartet by Menzies. A tour de force from musicians at the top of their games, don’t miss this one night only concert in the glorious Great Hall!

Mark Menzies has established an important, worldwide reputation as a violist and violinist, pianist and conductor. He has been described in the Los Angeles Times as an “extraordinary musician” and a “riveting violinist”. His career as a viola and violin virtuoso, chamber musician and pianist, conductor and advocate of contemporary music, has seen performances in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and across the United States, including a series of appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Viola, violin professor and coordinator of conducted ensembles at the California Institute of the Arts, from 1999-2016, Mark moved to New Zealand in 2016 to take up a Professor of Music & Head of Performance position at the University of Canterbury.

Elizabeth Layton studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School where, aged twelve, she was invited to join Hephzibah and Yehudi Menuhin in a chamber music concert to celebrate the latter’s Golden Jubilee, broadcast by the BBC from the Royal Festival Hall, London. She enjoys a varied career performing recitals and chamber music throughout Australia and New Zealand. She appears regularly as guest concertmaster with major symphony orchestras and combines performance with her position as Head of Classical Performance at the Elder Conservatorium, University of Adelaide.

German/ NZ cellist Edith Salzmann studied at the Music Academy in Detmold, Germany and at Indiana University Bloomington (USA). Since 2005 she is the artistic Director of the NZ Pettman National Junior Academy, a privately funded national pre-tertiary scholarship programme. She is the artistic Director of the International Akaroa Music Festival, an annual chamber music and masterclass festival in New Zealand that she founded in 2006, and the Musiktage Merzig festival in Germany. Edith is currently Head of Cello at the Elder Conservatorium, University of Adelaide.

New Zealand born, Teddy Tahu Rhodes’ singing talent came to the fore when he was a teenager and he won New Zealand’s Mobil Song Contest in 1991. He studied a Bachelor of Commerce and qualified as an accountant before re-entering the world of music. He has performed in leading opera companies in San Francisco, Austin, Washington, Philadelphia, Dallas, Cincinnati, Houston, Chicago, New York, the Hamburg State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Theater an der Wien, Vienna, Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera. Teddy lectures in voice at the Elder Conservatorium, University of Adelaide.

The German/New Zealand Pianist Michael Endres has been described by Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe as, “…one of the most interesting pianists recording today ” and by British Gramophone Magazine “…he is an outstanding Schubert Interpreter “. Among his many recordings (thirty-three in total) he has won the prestigious French award, Diapason D’or, three times and was also awarded the ‘Choc du Musique’ twice, with The New York Times reviewing “performances with pianist Michael Endres were revelatory”. Michael gained a masters degree at the Juilliard School in New York under Jacob Lateiner, Chamber music under Felix Galimir and studied with Peter Feuchtwanger in London.