‘Homecoming’ with Hammers & Horsehair

A Salon Concert re-imagining Rosina Buckman’s 1922 NZ tour.

In 1922 and 1923 Blenheim-born soprano Rosina Buckman made a triumphant homecoming tour, bringing with her cellist Adelina Leon and pianist-composer Percy Kahn.

Rosina’s farewell concert in London was to an audience of 10,000 in the Royal Albert Hall. Her tour began in Wellington on 15 May 1922 and ended in March the following year after more than 110 performances across New Zealand and Australia. New Zealanders couldn’t get enough of. their homegrown singing superstar!

In 2022 and 2023, a century after the original tour, Hammers & Horsehair duo Douglas Mews (piano) and Robert Ibell (cello) join forces with well-known Wellington soprano Rowena Simpson to reimagine Rosina’s homecoming.

The various musical items in this lively concert are interspersed with anecdotes from the 1922/3 tour, comparing touring life then and now and incorporating appropriate local or personal history.

Hammers & Horsehair will perform period classics from the tour, such as Arditi's "Il Bacio", “Waiata Poi” by Alfred Hill and "Love's a Merchant" by Molly Carew for soprano & piano, Percy Kahn’s own arrangement of his “Ave Maria” for soprano, cello & keyboard, Rimsky Korsakov’s "Chanson Indoue", Dvorak's "Humoresque" and Moskowski's "Guitarre" for cello & piano. The programme also includes some of their own favourites, including Brahms Intermezzo in B flat minor and Schubert Impromptu in A flat for piano solo and "Vilanelle" by Eva Dell'Acqua for soprano, cello and piano.