Events Calendar

Picture exciting aerial and floor circus acts combined with musical classics and you have captured the essence of Central Otago Regional Orchestra’s upcoming concerts series to be held on the evening of May 3rd at the Cromwell College Auditorium, and at a matinée May 4th at the Arrowtown Atheaneum Hall.

Bringing circus and music together has been a long-held dream of our conductor Ashley Hopkins after he experienced similar events in the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Local enquiry led to him finding Circus Space run by Abigail Rose.

Abigail trained in multiple Circus disciplines in New Zealand before training in Canada and the US. Her international experience has continued throughout the Southern Hemisphere both in performance and teaching and more recently she has performed at the Glastonbury Performing Arts festival in the United Kingdom, along with other festivals in Barcelona, Ireland and France. Her specialist disciplines are Aerial Silks. Silks and Double trapeze. She has developed Circus Space, based in Alexandra, for children and adults alike to have the opportunity to experience performing circus, including special funding opportunities for low-income families and those with special needs. In this performance she will be joined by four of her teenage students who have been performing aerials for about three years as well as assisting Abigail in teaching her many students.

Ashley brings a wealth of musical experience to the conductor’s podium. He has been CORO’s successful musical director since 2016 and has just entered his fourth year of conducting the Roxburgh Pioneer Energy Brass Band. Previously he has directed the Auckland Secondary Schools Orchestra and conducted for the North Shore Concert Band. He has previously performed clarinet with the Auckland Philharmonia, the NZSO and currently performs with the DSO and OPUS orchestras. He is having a lot of fun compiling the music for this concert series.

Well -loved classics like Entrance of the Gladiators, (Fucik), The Greatest Showman (Pasek and Paul), Send in the Clowns (Sondheim arr. Ashley Hopkins), The Teddy Bears Picnic (Bratton), Dance of the Tumblers (Rimsky-Korsakoff, arr. Dackow) , and The Pink Panther (Mancini) have all been coursing around Ashley’s mind as possibilities and these will be complimented by some other works such as Capriol Suite ( Peter Warlock) and El Relicario (Padilla).

This diverse concert series is another opportunity for the followers of CORO to see us in action with community groups, other similar concerts being performances with the Buckingham Belles and a Cromwell Ballet School.  We are looking forward to being able to perform with Abigail and her students as part of our community outreach.

This concert will be exciting and inspiring! Watch for our posters and https://www.undertheradar.co.nz/ to make your bookings in the coming couple of months.

Location

Cromwell College Auditorium and Arrowtown Atheaneum Hall