Vicissitudes

Mike Nock (ONZM) is an internationally recognised master of jazz. His trio, with Christchurch-born bassist Brett Hirst and Australian drummer James Waples, is one of the top modern jazz groups in Australasia. NZTrio is New Zealand's leading piano trio, and one of the finest in the southern hemisphere. Their innovative repertoire features dynamic and inspired interpretations of both traditional and contemporary classical music, as their critically acclaimed recordings for Rattle brilliantly attest.

Vicissitudes came about after Philip Tremewan (Director of the Christchurch Arts Festival) suggested to Mike Nock that he write a piece for two trios using a set of variations to show the different approaches each group might bring to the same piece of music. Mike wrote the piece as a way of offering something positive to the people of Christchurch in recognition of the extreme difficulties they've had to deal with in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 2011. The idea was to combine the disparate worlds of jazz and classical music to show the strength of the human spirit when faced with seemingly overwhelming obstacles.

"Over many years working together," says Mike, "my trio has developed a largely intuitive approach to making music, so performing with NZTrio presents a very different musical dynamic. Improvisation is central to my trio's role, as this is where we do our best work, so a large part of the enjoyment and interest for all six players is to explore the musical opportunities we discover when rehearsing and performing the piece".