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We welcome enquires from players; if you’d like to join the orchestra, please contact us to check availability of places – we’d love to hear from you.​
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About Us
Resonance Ensemble was formed in February 2012 by players and is now firmly established as an integral part of the musical landscape of Christchurch and beyond. Recognised as a high-quality, innovative and flexible orchestral ensemble, Resonance provides opportunities for musicians and audiences to experience both popular and novel repertoire beyond the more standard fare offered by Christchurch’s only fully professional orchestra. Programmes range from music for chamber orchestra, works for larger ensemble, and New Zealand compositions, including new commissions.
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The orchestra, conducted by Tony Ryan, rehearses weekly, presenting four concerts per year, and works primarily with Christchurch-based soloists. Previous conductors have included Helen Renaud, Anthony Ferner and Mark Hodgkinson.
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Our 2026 concerts are on Sundays at 3pm: 29 March, 28 June, 13 September and 29 November, so diary the dates now. We look forward to presenting wonderful and innovative programmes for our growing and appreciative audience.
Thanks for your support.
Suite Temptations
​Music by Debussy, Fauré, Humperdinck & Sibelius
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Conducted by Tony Ryan
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3pm, Sunday 29 March @ The Piano​​
​Resonance presents a concert of orchestral suites by composers from France, Germany & Finland.
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Claude Debussy’s Petite Suite was completed, in its original version for piano duet, by the twenty-six-year-old composer in 1889. Henri Büsser’s 1907 orchestration enhances the insinuating decadence of Debussy’s tuneful and seductive atmosphere, where countesses and rogues, priests and knights, engage in flirting, dreaming and unconsummated temptation.
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Like Debussy’s Petite Suite, Gabriel Fauré’s 1919 Masques et Bergamasques was influenced by the poetry of Paul Verlaine, the commedia dell’arte, and the suggestive frivolity of paintings by Watteau and Fragonard. Fauré’s music also shares Debussy’s evocative and nostalgic character.
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The same composer’s Dolly Suite is more genuinely innocent in character. Again, like Debussy’s Petite Suite, the Dolly Suite was originally written for piano duet and orchestrated in 1906 by Henri Rabaud. Its evocative scene painting makes us realise that, although ostensibly written to entertain a five-year-old child, it was also written for everyone.
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Also originally conceived as an entertainment for children, Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel resonates with adults as well and has become one of the most successful fairy-tale operas ever created. The composer was a protégé of Wagner, and the overture is flavoured with the sophisticated musical style of Humperdinck’s mentor while maintaining a charm and lightness that is entirely his own. The overture also acknowledges the darker side of the Grimm Brothers’ story but presents it with grace and humour.
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In 1898 Jean Sibelius wrote incidental music for King Christian II, a historical play by the Swedish writer Adolf Paul. The composer immediately extracted a suite of five pieces that became his first published orchestral music. The suite’s atmospheric Nocturne was originally an entr’acte, as was the fiery Ballade depicting political turmoil. A yearning string Elegy and a rustic Musette precede an elegant Serenade which was originally the prelude to Act III of the play. This gracious and immediately appealing music has many hallmarks of Sibelius’ later masterpieces – moving, dramatic, colourful and original.​​
​​Timeless & soul-stirring themes of drama and humanity open our 2026 Season with music that will entertain, inspire, and melt your heart – what better way to start the musical year?
Tony Ryan is well-known to Christchurch audiences as a conductor, composer, educator, and reviewer. As a conductor he learnt his craft as repetiteur, chorus master and conductor for many organisations including Canterbury Opera where he was assistant to international guest conductors including Vanco Cavdarski, John Matheson, Martin Turnovsky and many others. Since then he has worked extensively as a conductor and composer for Court Theatre, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, the Christchurch Youth Orchestra and others.
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In addition to Resonance Ensemble, Tony is the conductor of the Christchurch School of Music Sinfonia and the Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival Orchestra. ​​​
Conductor: Tony Ryan
His compositions have frequently been performed and broadcast in New Zealand and abroad, most recently by Resonance Ensemble, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, the Canterbury Philharmonia, and orchestras from the Christchurch School of Music.
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His Saxophone Concerto, with stellar saxophonist Alice Morgan, along with a brief Fanfare written in honour of New Zealand composer, John Ritchie, were featured in Resonance's Matariki concert in June 2025. As a teacher Tony led the performing arts at Linwood College for more than thirty years followed by several years working in Kenya and Singapore. Tony also writes on matters of musical interest – check out his website.
Leader: Cornelia Didenco
Cornelia was born in Moldova, one of the ex-Soviet Union republics and is a graduate of the Moldavian State Conservatorium. She has more than 30 years’ experience teaching and for most of that time has also played in symphony orchestras in both Moldova and New Zealand. During her time in the Moldavian Symphony Orchestra she performed at the Sala Verdi in La Scala, and at other prestigious venues in Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Romania.
After emigrating to New Zealand, she joined the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and has also appeared as a soloist and in chamber groups, and as the leader of Resonance Ensemble. Since joining the CSO she has toured with them to Japan and has performed with celebrities such as Diana Krall, Cliff Richard, George Benson, Serj Tankian, and Andrea Bocelli.