This event will take place in Ngā Pou Ruahine on Level 2 of Te Matapihi.

Between the Lines is a monthly early-evening chamber music series and book club that brings music and literature into conversation. Presented in the beautiful setting of Ngā Pou Ruahine in Te Matapihi, the series invites audiences to listen, think, and chat. No prior knowledge of music or literature is required, just a curious mind.

Taking place monthly from April to October on the final Thursday of each month, Between the Lines has been co-created by New Zealand String Quartet, Orchestra Wellington, and New Zealand School of Music. Each month these organisations will take turns presenting a talented group of musicians to perform music and host discussion on a different literary theme. From devil's bargains to language games, the obsessive tortured artist to the intimate private lives of writers and composers, this book club will delve deep into themes that span across artforms.

Each session will feature carefully selected music and a reading list highlighting the theme of the month. So, arrive solo or bring your book club to Te Matapihi for a new kind of conversation.

The theme of our October musical book club is language games.

Music to be performed: Walton – Façade

Language Games explores the joy, absurdity, and musicality of words.

In the early 20th century, artists began to break language apart and rebuild it in new ways. Meaning became fluid, rhythm took centre stage, and sound itself became a kind of play. Words were no longer just vehicles for ideas, but material to be shaped, stretched, and reimagined.

This programme draws on that spirit of experimentation. Here, language slips between sense and nonsense, clarity and confusion. Familiar patterns are disrupted, and new ones emerge. The result is something playful, unpredictable, and deeply expressive.

Music and speech meet on equal terms. Rhythm becomes meaning. Timing becomes everything. Like a poem that resists easy interpretation, the experience is not about finding a single answer, but about enjoying the movement of thought as it unfolds.

In this world, language is not fixed. It dances, it misbehaves, and it invites us to listen differently.