Photo: Supplied / Hamilton Arts Festival
Rachael Griffiths-Hughes. Photo: BLAKENEY WILLIAMS
If you take an evening stroll in Hamilton Gardens over the next few days you might come across dancers among the plants and a few musicians too, including harpsichordist Rachael Griffiths-Hughes.
Griffiths-Hughes is music director of the Karen Barbour choreographed dance-work, Garden of Returning Souls, which will have five performances in the English Flower Garden, Hamilton Gardens, as part of the city's 2026 Arts Festival. And yes, she'll be taking her virginals (a member of the harpsichord family) with her to the gardens.
Griffiths-Hughes spoke with RNZ Concert ahead of the performances about the role live music will play in the dance event, and her musical activities beyond the harpsichord.
They include directing music at Hamilton's Anglican Cathedral and editing sacred 18th-century German cantatas - other than those by JS Bach - for performance in the 21st century.
The latter is more than an academic pursuit (although Griffiths-Hughes is an academic based in Waikato University's music department), as she gets to perform those re-edited works with her cathedral choir once a month as part of regular church services.
Her favourites are the works of Christoph Graupner and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel.
