Concert?

We were due to attend a Musica Viva concert in Armidale last night (Saturday 13th), but things didn't quite go to plan ... and it wasn't my fault! Two of Australia’s rising musical stars, Feng Ning & John Chen joined forces to perform the piano - violin works of Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Dvorak, and Wieniawski. Feng Ning’s first prizes in the Michael Hill (New Zealand) and Paganini (Italy) violin competitions have led to invitations to perform across the world. John Chen became the youngest-ever winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition in 2004 and competed in the 2007 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition.

They performed magnificently ... what we heard of them because we arrived in time for the interval and missed the Mozart and Beethoven! Unfortunately, Judy, who bought the tickets, was convinced that the performance began at 8.00 and we were booked in then to a restaurant in town before heading out to UNE's Madgwick Hall. Alas, the concert began at 7.00 and we missed the first half.

The performances of the Dvorak, Debussy and Wieniawski showed excellent control and subtlty in works of considerable difficulty and we were shell-shocked that we had missed so much. Alas, there was no way to get half our money back!

AS