Between the Lines: Private Lives with New Zealand String Quartet

All Between the Lines events are FREE to attend, but booking in advance is encouraged.

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 June musical book club is private lives.

Music to be performed:

Amadeus Mozart | String quartet Kv. 465 “Dissonance”

Leoš Janáček | Intimate Letters

Grażyna Bacewicz | String Quartet No. 3

Dmitri Shostakovich | String Quartet No. 8

Optional reading list: (all titles linked to Wellington City Library catalogue)

Diaries of Note: 366 Lives, One Day at a Time | Usher, Shaun

Shostakovich: A Life Remembered | Elizabeth Wilson

Anne Frank: The Collected Works | Anne Frank

Mozart: The Reign of Love | Jan Swafford

The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary | ʻĀṭif Abū Sayf

The Cancer Journals | Audre Lorde

The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition | Frank, Anne

Vincent by Himself: a selection of his paintings and drawings together with extracts from his letters. | Bruce Bernard (ed.)

Letters from Gaza, by the people, from the year that has been | Mohammed Al-Zaqzooq, Mahmoud Alshaer (eds)

Happiness, as such | Natalia Ginzburg

Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life | Robert  Spaethling

I will Bear Witness: a Diary of the Nazi years | Victor Klemperer

The Lesser Evil: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1945–1959 | Victor Klemperer

Music and literature both have the power to transport an audience deep into the interior private lives of the composer and author. For our June musical book club, Between the Lines, which will take place on the anniversary of the publication of Anne Frank’s diaries in 1947, the New Zealand String Quartet have devised a programme of music that explores the ‘Private Lives’, secret thoughts, and hidden desires of four composers. Mozart, Janáček, Bacewicz, and Shostakovich each encoded their music with secrets, imbuing their music with a personal significance often at odds with their public personas. Now, by reading their letters, alongside performing their music, we can learn more about these composers’ personalities and appreciate their thoughts, fears, and hopes.

The reading list for ‘Private Lives’ brings together a variety of primary sources – the letters and diaries of artists, writers, composers and people living through extraordinary and difficult times – alongside fiction that utilises diary and letter forms.

Explore the rest of the series:

Thursday 30 April, 5:30pm - Orchestra Wellington - The Art of Conversation (first & second sessions to take place on Ngā Paiaka/ Bleachers on Te Papa Whenua/ Ground Floor)

Thursday 28 May, 5:30pm - New Zealand String Quartet - Obsession (first & second sessions to take place on Ngā Paiaka/ Bleachers on Te Papa Whenua/ Ground Floor)

Thursday 25 June, 5:30pm - New Zealand String Quartet - Private Lives

Thursday 30 July, 5:30pm - Orchestra Wellington - The Devil's Bargain

Thursday 27 August, 5:30pm - New Zealand String Quartet - Outsider

Thursday 24 September, 5:30pm - NZSM - Te Kōkī - Theme to be announced

Thursday 29 October, 5:30pm - Orchestra Wellington - Language Games