Serenity Thurlow (Ngāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Porou), Principal Violist with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. Photo: Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
It took a while for Serenity Thurlow to settle on the viola - she could have easily have gone for the violin instead.
When asked by RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump what lead her to focus on the former, she's quick to answer:
"I prefer the C string to the A string".
In other words, the rich, mellow sound that comes out of the lowest string of a viola beats the sound of the violin's top string, no matter how many good tunes the fiddle gets.
Thurlow (who is Ngāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Porou) will be putting all four strings of her viola to good use when she moves out from the front desk of her section to the front of the stage to play Bartók's viola concerto.
She spoke with Crump ahead of her performance with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra on 17 May, about her whanau's ties to Ōtautahi (Christchurch), and also the story behind the concerto, which was unfinished when Bartók died.
Bartok's friend Tibor Serly was the first person to attempt to complete it, followed by Bartók's own son Peter.
However, others wondered if those editions had made too many changes from Bartók's sketched notes to accommodate the player it was written for, violist William Primrose.
Hungarian violist Csaba Erdélyi prepared a new edition, but copyright laws prevented him from publishing it in the Northern Hemisphere.
Thurlow says the solution was to get it published in New Zealand (by the music publisher Promethean Editions) and this will be the version she'll be playing with the CSO.
Serenity Thurlow, Principal Violist, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra Photo: Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
