Violinist Benjamin Baker, violist Jessica Thompson and cellist Alexander Hersh perform Huw Watkins String Trio no.2: I.Allegro. The piece was recorded at Guarneri Hall in Chicago.
Commissioned through an international partnership between the Penarth Chamber Music Festival (Wales) and At the World’s Edge Festival (New Zealand and US), Huw Watkins’ String Trio No.2 is a compelling piece of musical architecture, unfolding across seven movements. The work was given its world premiere in Penarth in June 2024, followed by its New Zealand premiere at AWE in October, and this recording made later that year at Guarneri Hall in Chicago.
On the trio, Watkins says: ’My second string trio is a more large-scale piece than the compact, single-movement first, written just over a decade earlier.
’It is made up of seven short movements, each one picking up an idea, or a note left hanging from the preceding one, and taking it in quite different directions. This continues until the last two movements revisit much more thoroughly the athletic, fanfare-like material heard right at the beginning of the first.’
The release of this recording follows the launch of AWE Chicago, a partner festival bringing a taste of AWE and New Zealand creativity from the country’s Great Lakes region to the shores of Lake Michigan. Its mission is to build a vibrant creative pathway connecting the creative communities of Chicago, the US and New Zealand.
Over four days in April, AWE Chicago carved out a journey through the city — beginning at the Field Museum, where music paid tribute to one of only three Māori Meeting Houses outside New Zealand and honoured the 120 years it has been part of the museum’s collection. The festival continued with an intimate evening at Guarneri Hall — Chicago’s ‘classical music speakeasy’ — before concluding at the Driehaus Museum’s Murphy Auditorium, a cultural landmark from Chicago’s Gilded Age. A final day was dedicated to sharing AWE’s music with younger ears, with festival artists performing in schools across the city through a partnership with the Chicago Philharmonic.
AWE returns home this October to celebrate its fifth festival across New Zealand’s Queenstown Lakes region. This year’s programme welcomes, among others, international string soloists Anthony Marwood and Yura Lee, alongside celebrated New Zealand pianist Michael Houstoun, cellist Andrew Joyce, and Australian harpsichordist Erin Helyard.
Baker, artistic director of AWE says: ’As we have done since AWE began, every festival has a very particular programme focus with AWE 2025 exploring the connections between music and nature.
’We’re thrilled that this year we are able to expand that exploration through collaborations with three inspiring Kiwis: composer-in-residence John Psathas, Olympic freestyle skier Jossi Wells, and renowned architect Fred van Brandenberg.’
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