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We are currently looking for some new players – particularly upper strings. If you’d like to join the orchestra, please contact us to check availability of places – we’d love to hear from you.
We are compiling a database of people interested in our future concerts, so please contact us if you'd like to have your name added.
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About Us
Resonance Ensemble was formed in February 2012 by players and, 10 years on, is 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.
The orchestra rehearses weekly, presenting three or four concerts per year, and works primarily with Christchurch-based conductors and soloists. Conductors have included Tony Ryan, Helen Renaud, Anthony Ferner and Mark Hodgkinson.
Concert dates for 2023 are 3pm Sunday, on 26 March, 25 June, 17 September and 26 November, so diary them now. We look forward to presenting wonderful and innovative programmes for our growing and appreciative audience.
Thanks for your support.
Bookings are now open for our next concert
Outliers
Sunday, 26 March, 3pm at The Piano
Outliers features four works which, although familiar to many, are considered to be almost outside the standard repertoire.
The final galop from Rossini’s William Tell Overture may be one of the most well-known and exciting pieces of music ever written, but the rest of the overture, not to mention the whole magnificent five-hour-long opera which follows, is rarely heard. But the overture’s astonishingly innovative and original character make that final galop all the more charismatic and electrifying. The five cellos of Resonance Ensemble bring a fresh perspective to its extraordinary opening episode followed by one of Rossini’s most frighteningly realistic storm sequences. The orchestra’s superb flute and cor anglais players then indulge us with a Swiss yodelling song, before that final triumphant galop.
Gounod’s Ballet Music from Faust was not originally part of his most famous opera’s first performances. Come along to the concert to hear the rather extraordinary inside story of how this exceptionally varied and appealing music came to be written.
A third orchestral extract from opera comes in the form of the Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli’s only well-known opera La Gioconda. But even this colourful and dramatic opera is rarely heard apart from this famous dance that ends Act 3. Many in the audience will recognise sections of the Dance of the Hours that have appeared in popular songs, advertising jingles and a certain classic Disney movie.
But perhaps the work which is most deserving of the label ‘outlier’ is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. Coming immediately after the mighty Seventh Symphony and several years before the great choral Ninth with its iconic Ode to Joy, it’s easy to forget that No. 8 is Beethoven’s most innovative and experimental symphony and certainly one of his greatest. Written in 1812 and full of stunning and original music, Symphony No. 8 is the shortest of Beethoven’s mature symphonies. Although hardly an unknown work, this symphony will come as a revelation to many in the audience.
All of these works will come to life with Resonance Ensemble’s usual flair and dynamism in the stunning acoustic of Christchurch’s wonderful concert venue, The Piano, at 3.00pm on Sunday 26 March. Come along for some enthralling musical discoveries on a path less travelled.
Conductor: Tony Ryan
Tony Ryan is well-known to Christchurch audiences as a conductor, composer, educator, reviewer and adjudicator. He has worked extensively as a conductor and composer for many organisations including Canterbury Opera, Court Theatre, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and the Christchurch Youth Orchestra. As a teacher he led the performing arts at Linwood College for more than thirty years before spending several years working in Kenya and Singapore.
Since returning to New Zealand, Tony has worked as a regular conductor of Resonance Ensemble, the Christchurch School of Music Sinfonia and the Christchurch Schools' Music Festival Orchestra. Tony’s compositions have been performed and broadcast extensively in New Zealand and abroad, and his most recent works have been performed by Resonance Ensemble, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, orchestras from the Christchurch School of Music and, in November 2022, his latest composition, HAKA (II), was premiered by the Schools' Music Festival Orchestra for whom it was written.
Tony also writes on matters of musical interest – check out his website here.
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 the 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.