History in the making on the Bannockburn stage

It would be rare enough for one of the oldest violas in the world to be played in Bannockburn; even rarer is for it to be played alongside one of the youngest.

Next month, when the At the World’s Edge Festival comes to Bannockburn, United-Kingdom-based, Aotearoa-born violist Bryony Gibson-Cornish will be doing just that at an historic event taking place at the Coronation Hall.

Performing in Central Otago for the first time in almost a decade, Ms Gibson-Cornish is one of the many world-leading chamber musicians who will take to the stages of Central Otago and the Southern Lakes during At the World's Edge.

In between the two performances taking place in Bannockburn, she will be the very first musician to play a brand new viola that has been made specifically for and gifted to the festival by luthier Stephan Osthorst.

“I feel very honoured to be the first to play on this beautiful viola,” Ms Gibson-Cornish says, “and to do so in the place where I grew up makes it all the more special.”

While now living in the United Kingdom, Ms Gibson-Cornish hails from Aotearoa and lived in Cromwell for the first four years of her life before her family moved to Dunedin.

“In the years following from when I moved away, my grandparents continued to live in Cromwell for five or six more years and so we had many holidays down there, I have very fond memories of biking around Lake Dunstan with my grandad and also swimming in the lake of course. My uncle still lives in Cromwell now - he used to own a vineyard called Lowburn Ferry, so I still have a good excuse to spend time down in Central.”

Ms Gibson-Cornish will perform a piece by renowned Aotearoa composer, Salina Fisher, At the World’s Edge Festival's first Composer in Residence in 2021.

”Selina’s music has helped me connect to my New Zealand roots while I’ve been away from home. She wrote a beautiful solo viola work for me back in 2014, and also a string quartet, 'Heal' for my quartet in 2020, which we have performed extensively all over the world. These two pieces always make me feel very proud to be a Kiwi and I love sharing them with audiences.”

While Ms Gibson-Cornish will be able to lay claim to being the first to play one of the newest violas in the world, she can also claim to be the guardian of one of the oldest violas in existence.

“Thanks to the Stradivari Trust, I am now playing on an extremely old viola, probably amongst the first couple of hundred ever made (it was made between 1600 and 1610). So it’s going to be a cool thing to be able to compare old and new and hopefully talk about both of them during the Bannockburn event.”

This year’s At the World’s Edge Festival focuses on the influence of folk music on chamber music, with performances of pieces from around the globe and across the centuries.

“AWE this year is all about tradition and the retelling of stories,” Ms Gibson-Cornish says, "so it’s going to be fantastic to perform with my 17th century viola that has already told so many tales and seen so much and then launch the AWE viola on its way, no doubt the first performance of many.”

At the World’s Edge Festival runs from October 5 to 18, with performances in Queenstown, Wānaka, and Bannockburn.

The AWE+ series offers free events - concerts, open rehearsals and talks - throughout the festival at all festival venues. 

For tickets and a detailed programme, visit www.worldsedgefestival.com

Main image (Supplied): UK-based, Aotearoa-born violist Bryony Gibson-Cornish will be performing at Bannockburn's Coronation Hall in October.