The living arts

Press, 11 April 1978, Page 19

The living arts

Pianist back The first concert in a new series of recitals and master classes by visiting musicians, promoted by the Christchurch Conservatoire, will be given in the State Trinity Centre tonight by the pianist, Richard Mapp, who is making a brief visit home to New Zealand. Richard Mapp was born in Christchurch in 1953. He started piano lessons with Ernest Empson when he was six, and in 1965 made his debut with the Christchurch Civic Orchestra. He studied with Maurice Till, first at the University of Canterbury and later at the University of Otago, and in 1972 made his debut with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and also won the “Auckland Star” and Christchurch Civic Music Council concerto corn* petitions.

Since September, 1975, he has been a post-gra 'uate pupil of Professor Gordon Green at the Royal Academy of Music, where he

has been awarded the Dip. R.A.M (the highest qualification offered) and several of the top prizes for piano, last year, he was a finalist and prize-winner in a major ■' ncerto cornpetit im in Eng’a id, and in April gave a well-reviewed recital at the Jew Zealand Embassy in Bonn. This led

to further s “ais and concerto engagements in West Germany and the opportunity to record works by i“e New Zealand composer, Edwin Carr, for E.M.I Richard Mapp will return to LO.-’Oon for engagements there in May ana in Germany m June The pregramme he will play tonight consists of Haydn’s Variations in F minor, Schubert’s Sonata in A, Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 in A flat, Edwin Carr’s Four Short Ccr.ce r to Stud- . ies (1973) and Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5 in F sharp. Court drama After a series of three comedies, the Court Theatre will revert to drama for its next production. It is “Days in the Trees,” by Marguerite Duras, French novelist and author of “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” one o. the most highly acclaimed filr •- of the 19605. “Days in the Trees” is _eing produced by Bryan Aitken, who describes it as a story of greed, failure, and responsibility. “A man and his mistress are visited suddenly by ’ is rich, gluttonous rapacious, ageing mother. She lives in a colony where her money and possessions grow daily in unimagined proportions. The son, always closely attached to his mother, has remained a reckless playboy drifting from job to job and from woman to woman. His only passion is gambling. He is a failure, a man whose time is running out. But he cannot change and the question Marguerite Duras poses with force and pathos, is whether in fact his mother would wish him to change. “As long as he is irresponsible he i- dependent upon her wealth. But their relationship is essentially one of inter-dependence, a trap from which neither can escape,” Mr Aitken says. The cast includes Elizabeth Moody, Elric Hooper, Judy Gibson, and Stuart Thompson. The season will open on April 19.

Film change ■ “The Eagle Has Two Heads,” written and directed by Jean Cocteau, and based on his strange, poetic play about the passion of a widowed, mysterious Queen (Edwige Feuillere) for the man who is sent to assassinate her (Jean Marais), will be sho rn tonight- and tomor-

row by the Canterbury Film Society in place of Bresson’s “Four Nights of a Dreamer,” a print of which has not arrived from Paris. Tonight’s Ham screening has been transferred from Room Al to SI, but tomorrow’s screening will be at the Museum Theatre, as usual. Church music The series of lunch-time recitals in the Christchurch Cathedral will resume this week with an organ recital on Friday by John Dodgshun. Recitals already planned for succeeding weeks will feature David Childs (orga \t), the Aurelian Singers, and Sue Lennon (organist). —Derek Rooney