The New Zealand String Quartet presents their 2026 Season: Storytellers.

Behind every piece of music is a story and across our 2026 Season we're diving into them. Join us at the Concert Chamber of the War Memorial Centre Whanganui for an evening exploring a rich cross-section of compositional voices and celebrating the art of storytelling through music.

Concert Programme:

Sara Arain - The Internal Eclipse

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet No. 11, in F minor (Op. 95)

Interval

Benjamin Britten - String Quartet No. 3, in G major (Op. 94)

Claire Cowan - Scenes from Hansel & Gretel

The Legend programme opens with emerging composer Sara Arain’s 'The Internal Eclipse', selected by the Quartet as the winning work in their competition for New Zealand School of Music – Te Kōkī students. Committed to supporting the next generation of composers, the NZSQ will perform this beautiful work - based on an ancient Persian mystical tale - across five dates on their Legend tour.

The programme continues with Ludwig van Beethoven’s high-octane and form-breaking 'String Quartet No. 11, Op. 95', that continues to surprise and thrill audiences to this day.

To complete their year-long tribute to the fiftieth anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s death, the NZSQ will perform his third and final string quartet. This quietly luminous piece, based on themes from his final opera, Death in Venice, serves as a poignant musical farewell, made even more profound by the fact it was the last major work Britten ever composed.

The Quartet will bring their 2026 Season to a jubilant close with acclaimed Auckland composer Claire Cowan’s ‘Sweet Suite: Hansel and Gretel highlights’ - a magical reimagining of her internationally celebrated ballet score, which was the first full-length ballet composed by a New Zealand woman and enjoyed an incredible 5-week, sold-out national tour by the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2019.

The concert programme, crafted in our signature style, aims to engage audiences of all levels of familiarity with chamber music. Each piece of music is preceded by a lively and informative introduction delivered by the Quartet members themselves. These introductions seek to shed light on the stories behind the music, making it an enriching experience suitable for all audiences.