NZSO quartet captures hearts and minds of Huntly school children

Even young children were captivated and silenced by a finely-tuned string quartet of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) at Huntly College.

Solely for North Waikato youngsters, last week’s hour-long performance was intended to give children a taste of something often outside of their experience – classical music.

The children were persuaded into submission by lead violinist Andrew Thomson’s hilarious telling of ending up bald after being kicked by a horse that was unhappy about having tail hairs plucked for his bow.

He also made reference to the height differences of his colleagues, Pam Jiang (very short) on the violin and Norbet Heuser (very tall) on the viola.

“As you can see, I’m the only normal-sized person in the quartet,” Thomson said as the young audience erupted with laughter.

As if that was not enough to impress the crowd, the age of Thomson’s violin was.

“The best thing about violins is how long they can last if you look after them. This violin was made in 1770,” Thomson told his by now captivated audience.

“It’s never been re-varnished; it has all of its original parts, so it’s quite impressive.”

Similarly, longest-standing NZSO musician German-born Heuser, who joined the orchestra in 1975, used a 1900s viola.

Sponsored by Solid Energy, the performance is the third annual trip the orchestra has made to Huntly and Communications Manager Anne Beex hopes they will return again next year.

“It’s the sort of music the kids only hear recordings of, which just isn’t the same as seeing the orchestra live, and feeling the music,” she said.

“They won’t get intimacy at a concert like they do here (Huntly College), it’s a much friendlier experience.”
Enthusiasm was confirmed by the excited shouts from younger members of the audience at the end of each piece.

Happy concert goer, nine-year-old Candice Gribble loved the performance.

“I liked the harp best because it had a pretty part and then a scary part,” she said.