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Not only will celebrated three-piece Ghost Trio perform works by Beethoven, Tōru Takemitsu and Ravel at the Warkworth Town Hall on Saturday, July 26 at 4pm, they’ll also premiere a new work by esteemed NZ composer Glen Downie.
Downie, a former Mahurangi College student now studying a PhD in composition at Cambridge University, says to be able to share the piece in Warkworth is special.
“It’s called ‘Sonata da chiesa’, which literally means ‘church sonata’, but it’s really a secular form describing a slow-fast-slow-fast structure. I wrote it here in the UK as the first piece in my PhD,” he says.
“Maybe people will remember some of my high school pieces and still recognise some of the same character (in the new work), but with a bit more depth and polish.”
Downie attended Mahurangi from 2003 to 2009 and says many of his teachers there influenced his development.
“My first classroom teacher was Moira Atkinson, then later I had Lyn Dashper, and both were very supportive. Jack Lauderdale, the band director, was probably the most influential and instilled a sense of responsibility and discipline.
“And I had a range of itinerant teachers: in saxophone, Scott MacDowell, later Russel Smith; guitar and bass with Laughton Kora; and theory with Susan Hayday.”
Downie says he started composing mostly by recording different parts on top of each other (guitar/bass/saxophones) and later moved into writing notated music.
He adds that he knows Ghost Trio personally from Wellington, where he lived while completing a Master of Musical Arts at Te Kōkī/NZ School of Music,Victoria University.
“I’ve worked with most of the members individually on different projects. So it’s nice to write for them in combination and the piece is very much tailored to them.”
Ghost Trio comprises violinist Monique Lapins, cellist Ken Ichinose and pianist Gabriela Glapska.
Lapins was second violinist with the New Zealand String Quartet as well as a lecturer at Te Kōkī/NZ School of Music for eight years, up until 2024.
London-born cellist Ichinose was appointed associate principal cello of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 2014, while also pursuing a busy chamber music career in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Polish pianist Glapska holds a master’s in music from Feliks Nowowiejski Music Academy in Poland and a PhD in music from Victoria University, completed in 2011 and 2020 respectively.
The Ghost Trio concert is presented by Warkworth Music, in partnership with Chamber Music New Zealand, and will be around 105 minutes including a 15-minute interval.
Tickets are available at the door (cash only) or online at www.warkworthmusic.org
