Programme:
Violin and Piano:
Hermann Friedrich Raupach (1728-78): Sonata in A major
(Allegro con spirito; Andante grazioso con Variazioni)
Violin and Piano:
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Sonata in G major, Op. 96
(Allegro moderato; Adagio espressivo; Allegro (Scherzo & Trio); Poco allegretto)

INTERVAL (20 minutes)
Piano:
Frédéric Chopin (1810-49): Nocturne in E major, Op. 62 No. 2; Grande Valse in A flat major, Op. 42
Violin and Piano:
Henryk Wieniawski (1835-80): Two Mazurkas, Op. 19 No. 1 in G major, & Op. 19 No. 2 in D major

SYDNEY MANOWITZ, violin
Unlike many musicians, Sydney Manowitz’s parents actively encouraged him to seek a musical career. His progress was such that at the age of 13 he played Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra. Further study took him to the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, after which he returned to London to join the ‘army’ of freelance musicians working in that city.

His many engagements have varied from participating in the sound track orchestra for a James Bond film to taking part in Mozart recordings at the Abbey Road Studios; the latter as a player in the English Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim as soloist-director. As the violinist in the Pierrot Players he has helped present the premieres of works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. More recent first performances have explored the contemporary music of Judith Whitaker, Anthony Ritchie and Gillian Whitebead.

During a period in Canada, Sydney performed as Concertmaster of the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra and Associate Concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He has issued two unaccompanied recordings – one devoted exclusively to J.S.Bach, the other of rarely heard Baroque composers. He was lecturer in violin at the University of Otago, and has been Concertmaster of the Southern Sinfonia since 1994. The violin he plays is a fine example by Nicolas Lupot, made in 1805 in Paris.

DONALD CULLINGTON, piano
Donald Cullington, who hails from the North of England, read Classics at Cambridge University and then qualified as a musician, gaining the DMus degree at Edinburgh University in 1974. His half-century in music – as pianist, organist, choir-trainer and teacher – has included four years (1975-8) as Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin, and twenty-eight years in Northern Ireland as initiator, developer and (for some years) head of the University of Ulster’s Music Department.

As pianist and organist he has given many recitals (including broadcasts) throughout New Zealand and the UK, and now, having returned to Dunedin in 2003, combines his musical work with the editing and translation of early-modern Latin texts. Recently John Hale and he were jointly presented with the John T. Shawcross Award of the Milton Society of America for their edition and translation of Milton’s largest work, De Doctrina Christiana (published by Oxford University Press in 2012). He has made a special study of Chopin’s piano music, on which much of his doctoral research centred, but his piano repertoire is wide-ranging and ever-widening.