New Zealand adventures update

Hello from New Zealand! I’ve been here nearly three weeks and am having an amazing time :) I wanted to write to give you a recap of what I’ve been up to!

Saturday, January 28th I took the short flight over from Victoria to Vancouver (my flight ended up delayed and I was worried about missing my connection, but it worked out fine) and then the loooong 14 hour flight from Vancouver to Auckland.

This was actually the first time I’ve flown west from Victoria and the longest single flight I’ve been on to date. At the same time, going east always involves multiple connections and total travel time can approach 24 hours (to Rio de Janeiro for example). So despite the long flight this felt like a direct trip, and certainly one time when living on the west coast is a huge advantage over people travelling to New Zealand from the east coast of North America or from Europe…

I don’t tend to sleep well on airplanes, but since the flight left at midnight I was pretty tired and managed to snatch a reasonable amount of sleep. New Zealand is only 3 hours behind Victoria – just an extra day ahead! (I left on Saturday, arrived Monday morning. Sunday magically disappeared) so adjusting to the time change was actually thankfully easy.

Before actual start of Harp Fest NZ I had a solo concert at Lewis Eady – a piano and harp showroom and store. Full house and an enthusiastic audience! Before my last piece on the program (perennial favorite The Moldau) I mentioned how special it is to be performing live again – I haven’t done that many in-person performances since the pandemic and I actually found myself getting choked up a bit – didn’t expect that but a reminder of how special and powerful sharing music together can be.

Friday was the start of the festival, with a special concert featuring performances by Felice Pomeranz, Helen Webby, Adriano Sangineto, Esther Swift, Amanda Whiting, and myself.

Saturday through Monday I taught 3 workshops, including presenting “Practice Strategies” with my student Victoria Johnson, one of the harp fest committee member who had joined me on the flight from Vancouver!

Sunday Mary O’Neill was supposed to perform as part of a shared afternoon concert with Elizabeth Volpé Bligh (also from Vancouver!) but Mary had been bumped from her flight and had to miss the festival (yikes :( ) so I joined Elizabeth for an all Canadian composers concert (I played my Uncharted Shores and Nordic Spaces on lever harp and then switched to pedal harp for Passage).

(warming up before the concert!)

I also found time to film the outro to the final episode of this season of Harpist in the Wild!

Then just like that, the festival was over! Tuesday I attended a pedagogy workshop by Katryna Tan as she talked about what she’s done creating Rave Harps in Singapore. Then a few days by the beach plus working with local students before flying to Christchurch and the South Island.

I feel very lucky – as you may have seen in the news, New Zealand has suffered through some recent extreme weather events. Had my initial flight to Auckland been a day or two earlier the airport would still have been flooded and no international flights were landing! Auckland and area suffered from a “atmospheric river” – a huge dump of water in a very short time (My province of BC experienced something similar a few years ago that caused huge damage). When I was picked up at the airport I was told that a few days earlier people were able to swim in the road on which we were currently driving…

Then leaving for the South Island when I did I dodged the cyclone that again affected Auckland and north of Auckland in particular. Tough times for New Zealand :( My heart goes out to all the affected by the cyclone.

In Christchurch I had a chance to take a cruise at Akaroa to see Hector’s Dolphins (and more) before performing at the Nut Point Centre outside of Christchurch. A pretty cool venue and another very enthusiastic crowd. Then a chance to drive on the “wrong” side of the road up the coast to Ruby Bay. For this I’d rented a lever harp (big thanks to Helen Webby for sorting me out with harps for the South Island. This lever harp was made by her brother Kim, who makes amazing pedal harps).

Fun to do a lever harp concert! Played many of the pieces you’ll have heard on various Harpist in the Wild episodes :) Another cool venue – quite small but with proper tiered seating and theatre lighting, etc.

Then a few days to drive down the west coast of the island and sightsee. I never grew tired of watching the waves crashing along the shore. Spent a magical evening photo waves and sunset at a spectacular rocky location.

And now I’m getting ready to fly back to Auckland and prepare for an action packed week – starting the 26th I have 4 more public concerts and 2 private concerts before I bid Adieu to New Zealand and fly to Australia on March 7th!

I’ve posted a bunch of photos from my trip here – check it out.  I look forward to sharing more of my adventures with you soon – thanks as always for reading!

Cheers,
Josh


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