Music performance with a difference
Wellington duo select poetry to complement the music
The Wanganui Music Society will present a performance with a difference this month. Ingrid Prosser and Colin Decio will combine poetry and music in a concert that should appeal to a wide audience. Decio is a pianist and composer who has spent most of his life in England, living in New Zealand since late 2016. He has performed throughout the UK as both a soloist and accompanist.
His award-winning compositions cover the whole
range of instruments and voices — from symphonies to sonatas to songs.
Prosser is a New Zealander but has spent many years living and studying in the UK. She describes herself as a singer specialising in medieval music and a performance poet, of both her own and others’ poetry and has published a volume of poems and has a second volume in preparation.
Prosser’s performance style is theatrical, highlighting the close connection between spoken and sung words.
The pair perform together regularly in programmes of classical piano music and poetry from their home base in Wellington, including the lunchtime concert series.
They also visit schools to perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.
The duo select poetry to complement the music and the two are interspersed.
Their Whanganui concert will include piano pieces by Bach, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Haydn, Ravel, Poulenc and Prokofiev.
Prosser will read her own poetry and well-known poems by Edward Lear, John Masefield, Walter de la Mare and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
There will also be poems by EE Cummings and John Drinkwater.
■ Piano & Poetry: Ingrid Prosser and Colin Decio. Sunday, June 30 at 2pm. St Paul’s Worship Centre, Cooks St. Adult $20, seniors $15, school student $5, Music Society member $10. Book at Royal Wanganui Opera House, 69 St Hill St, Ph 06 349 0511. Tickets are available from the Royal Wanganui Opera House and at the door. Adults $20, seniors $15, Music Society members $10 and students $5.