About Us
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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Resonance Ensemble was formed in February 2012, 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.
The orchestra rehearses weekly, presenting three or four concerts per year and works primarily with Christchurch-based conductors and soloists. Recent conductors have included Tony Ryan, Helen Renaud and Anthony Ferner.
In 2019 Resonance Ensemble will present three main concerts: the first will be on 30 June at The Piano, with conductor Tony Ryan, who last year directed Resonance in the New Zealand premiere of Shostakovich’s ebullient Jazz Suite No 2, and which proved to be one of the highlights of the 2018 Christchurch musical calendar.
Join us for our next concert:
Fairly French - 2pm, Sunday 1 December
Gaiety Theatre, Akaroa
Programme:
Hérold Overture to Zampa
Dvořák Romance for Violin and Orchestra (Soloist: Cornelia Didenco)
Gounod Funeral March of a Marionette
Bloch Prayer from From Jewish Life (Soloist: Janet Cubey)
Saint-Saëns Suite Algérienne
Chabrier Suite Pastorale
Conductor: Helen Renaud
Fairly French
Christchurch bassoonist, saxophonist and conductor, Helen Renaud has been the HOD of Music at Burnside High School, where she now works part time. She studied bassoon at the Wellington Conservatorium of Music, and Music History at the University of Victoria, before receiving her teaching qualification. In 2009 she graduated with a Masters in Music from the University of Melbourne, where she focused on conducting. It was here that she was taught by the late Professor John Hopkins OBE, and Richard Gill OAM.
In 2018 Helen graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Doctorate in Musical Arts, looking at rehearsal techniques for high school and youth ensembles.
Helen was appointed to the role of Conductor of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch Youth Orchestra in 2016. She also conducts the Burnside High School Orchestra and Junior Concert band, and is a free-lance conductor around Christchurch.
Helen also plays baritone saxophone with the All Girl Big Band, where she is one of the founding members.
We warmly invite you to join us for our final concert for 2019, conducted by Helen Renaud, in the beautiful Gaiety Hall in Akaroa.
Works include Herold’s Overture to Zampa, a dramatic, classic work with an exhilarating finale, Gounod’s well-known novelty piece, Funeral March of a Marionette, Saint Saëns’ Suite Algerienne and Chabrier’s Suite Pastorale.
Our leader Cornelia Didenco will perform as a soloist with the orchestra in Dvorak’s gracious and glorious Romance in F minor, while cellist Janet Cubey will perform one of the movements from Bloch’s From Jewish Life, which beautifully captures the spirit and soul of a Jewish prayer.
