Gareth Farr Photo: supplied
Gareth Farr's Cello Concerto Chemin des Dames has been recorded and released on CD, paired with Elgar’s Cello Concerto.
The recording is something of a multinational collaboration: an eminent Kiwi composer, New Zealand’s foremost orchestra the NZSO, French cellist Sébastien Hurtaud, Australian conductor Benjamin Northey and a British record label, Rubicon.
Bringing the project to fruition has been an expensive task, requiring more than $70,000 – made up from grants and crowdfunding in both New Zealand and France.
Sebastien Hurtaud Photo: Laurent Campguilhem
Upbeat talked with Gareth Farr in Wellington, and Sébastien Hurtaud in Paris via Skype. The two discuss the process of getting the CD off the ground, the relationship of composer and performer, and the sometimes unconscious similarities of Elgar’s and Farr’s cello concertos – both composed as a memorial to those fallen in the Great War.
"Thanks to Gareth Farr's Cello Concerto," says Sébastien, "I finally found my way to perform and to interpret the Elgar."
