The HBHS Chamber Music Programme has had another very successful year to date, with new instrumentation leading to fresh repertoire and new challenges. Tritones, our premier piano trio, welcomed Year 11 Matthew Colvin on clarinet, adding a completely different tone colour as replacement for the more traditional cello role. Alongside Kevin Li (piano) and Daniel Loy (violin), they were once again the champion group at the Waikato District round of the National Chamber Music Contest held at the University of Waikato on Wednesday 7 June. This is the third year in a row that the group has taken first prize – an outstanding achievement that recognises their countless hours of preparation both individually and as a group. They tackled perhaps their biggest challenge yet with a work by Khachaturian which demanded new thinking on interpretation and style of playing.The win gave Tritones direct entry to the Northern Regional Finals held in Auckland on Saturday 24 June. They gave their strongest performance and competed stunningly against some of the best musicians in the country. While they did not make the last stage for the National Final (just 8 groups across New Zealand are chosen), they have taken another significant growth step and look forward to aiming high in 2024.

Tritones were also the recipients of the Arnold Trowell Award (open chamber music division) at the Hamilton String Competitions in the July school holidays, again for the third year running. From here they were selected to perform at the annual Competitions Showcase Concert and they enjoyed the opportunity to play alongside some of the region’s brightest talent in the performing arts. Seitz Readers, our piano quartet which was formed late in 2022, also received high recognition for their performance of a work by Friedrich Seitz at the Waikato District contest, taking one of the few Highly Commended Awards (the contest does not award runner up prizes). Congratulations to John Huang (piano), Amos Robinson (cello) and William Zhang and Samuel Xia (violin) on their achievement both on stage, and in the degree of growth as chamber musicians in such a short time.