Taste of the Country

  • Tuesday, 2 May 2023

  • Contentious Character Winery

    Wamboin, NSW

  • With Support From

Set in the hills of Wamboin, just 30 km east of Canberra, the cool-climate winery of Contentious Character gives you a taste of the beautiful countryside outside Canberra. Above all our yearly Festival Trip gives you a chance to relax and recover from the Festival’s exertions with the best things life has to offer – music included.

Wine tasting, a two course lunch and two musical performances make for a quality experience. Quatuor Van Kuijk serves French quartet delicacies and on this occasion Katie Yap strikes up the folk fiddle.

The coach leaves Canberra at 10.30 am and returns at 4.30 pm.

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Artist Katie Yap

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Katie grew up playing the violin and piano in her hometown of Brisbane. Shortly before starting her Bachelor of Music at the University of Queensland (UQ), she fell in love with the viola and has never looked back since! Katie studied with Patricia Pollett at UQ, graduating with Honours and a University Medal in 2011. She then spent three years studying at the Australian National Academy of Music under Caroline Henbest and Christopher Moore.

Katie likes to keep her musical life varied, and her favourite kind of music making is with chamber groups. She is violist in the Chrysalis Harp Trio (2019 ANAM Artists), early music chamber groups Ironwood Ensemble and The Muses’ Delight, and joined the Australian String Quartet in 2016 in programs of quintets and sextets. In 2017, Katie spent a month in Central Queensland touring with the Orpheus Club, presenting 10 public concerts, 8 schools concerts and workshops, and recording four new Australian works.  In 2018, she joined Van Diemen’s Band in a national tour of chamber music of the late baroque period, including performances at the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, and UKARIA Cultural Centre.

 

Katie Yap is supported by Peter Wise

Artist Quatuor Van Kuijk

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“Style, energy and a sense of risk. These four young Frenchman made the music smile.” The Guardian

The Quatuor Van Kuijk’s international accolades boast First, Best Beethoven, and Best Haydn Prizes at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition; First Prize, and an Audience Award at the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition; as well as becoming laureates of the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy. They were BBC New Generation Artists from 2015-17, as well as ECHO Rising Stars for the 2017-18 season.

Following such high success early in their career, the ensemble is an established presence at major international venues, performing at the Wigmore Hall, London; Philharmonie de Paris, Auditorium du Louvre, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and Salle Gaveau, Paris; Tonhalle, Zurich; Wiener Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Vienna; Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Berliner Philharmonie; Kölner Philharmonie; Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg; Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Tivoli Concert Series, Denmark; Konserthuset Stockholm; and at festivals including the BBC Proms, Cheltenham, Heidelberg, Lockenhaus, Davos, Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier/Radio France, Evian, Auvers-sur-Oise, Stavanger and Trondheim (Norway), Concentus Moraviae (Czech Republic), Haydn/Esterházy (Hungary), and Eilat (Israel).

 

Quatuor Van Kuijk is supported by Sharon Green and Marcel Skjald