NZ Symphony Orchestra members perform
After the performance, Gillian and Dr Bernard Jackson pose proudly with their NZSO violin-playing daughter, Rebecca Struthers. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
Residents, staff and locals alike packed the Joan Whiting Rest Home lounge on 2 June when four members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performed a selection of traditional classical and modern pieces.
Rebecca Struthers, who played the violin, is the daughter of Beach Road resident Gillian Jackson and Joan Whiting resident Dr Bernard (Barry) Jackson. After flying into Nelson the day before, the four musicians played at a school there in the morning, attracted an audience of around 300 to their afternoon performance at a Stoke rest home, and finished off the evening working with some chamber music students.
When they turned up at GBHS the next morning to give another performance to music students there, NZSO trumpet/cornet player Mark Carter was bowled over to meet his old music teacher from his English high school days, Melinda Machin, now a music teacher at GBHS. The two other members of the quartet at Joan Whiting were Lindsay Mountfort on viola and Eleanor Carter on cello.
“How old do you think our instruments are?” Rebecca asked the audience. The answer was over 250 years for her violin; it was crafted by the two Fischer brothers from Germany who later shifted to Italy to practise their craft. Eleanor’s cello was just turning 190, its outstanding pedigree known back to the very day it was finished in June 1821.
Rest home manager Jan Dahl said afterwards that it was a brilliant little performance.
“Everybody was really taken in; you could see the entire audience was spellbound by it.” Several of the NZSO performers commented on the wonderful outlook from the rest home - arguably the best institutional view in the country.
Gerard Hindmarsh
