Genevieve gates-Panneton and Bethany Angus. Photo: Supplied
It's the best part of three years since Bethany Angus left Aotearoa to study early music performance (and the baroque cello in particular) in the Netherlands.
Angus, who plays keyboards as well as the cello, developed a love of period performance early in her career. By the time she was in her early 20s she felt she needed to travel further afield to develop her technique, especially playing the baroque cello.
A Kia Ora Foundation Patricia Pratt Scholarship enabled Angus to enrol as a Masters student in cello performance at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague.
There she met Canadian soprano Genevieve Gates-Panneton, who was also studying early music performance.
Now Angus is back, and she managed to persuade Gates-Panneton to come with her.
The pair are performing this week, along with fellow early music exponents, Michael Stewart and Kamala Bain, in a "Thank God it's Friday" lunchtime concert at St Paul's Cathedral in Wellington.
Angus and Gates-Panneton spoke to RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump about their upcoming concert, how they met, and how they're trying to make as much of a living as they can out of performing music.
As well as singing with Angus in this Friday's lunchtime gig, Gates-Panneton was recently part of a Queen's Closet performance of Henry Purcell's opera The Prophetess, and she has another concert lined up with Wellington's Baroque Voices later this month.
Angus, meanwhile, can be seen playing conventional cello with Orchestra Wellington.
Crump asked her if it's tricky jumping from modern cello to the baroque version, which has no spike (players have to hold it between their knees instead). Angus says one of the challenges is the change in tuning, with baroque tuning being about a semitone lower than modern music.
When not making music, the pair can be found helping on the family orchard in Wairarapa, where they arrived just in time to help with the autumn harvest.
Did Angus warn Gates-Panneton coming to New Zealand might involve taking on some labouring work in an apple farm?
"That was part of the attraction", she replies.
