Please note change of date due to Queens Birthday!
Our next meeting will be held on Sunday 9th June 2019
At Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba St, Te Aro, Wellington
The meeting will start at 4.15 and finish at 6.30 pm.

Feature Spot this month:
This month we have two excellent performers and composers presenting their own compositions. It is great to support the composers of the present. Imagine if no one had supported Back or Mozart!!!

About Michael Stoop

Here is a video from youtube of him playing his piece – ‘Resurrecting the Dream’

Michael Stoop is a Wellington-based guitarist, composer, and teacher. He studied classical guitar performance at the New Zealand School of Music with Matthew Marshall and Dr Jane Curry, and completed his Bachelor of Music in 2012.
Since graduating, Michael has dedicated a lot of time to composing new music for the guitar. His debut album ‘Landscapes’ was released on Bandcamp in June 2017. Consisting entirely of original compositions for solo guitar, many of the pieces on ‘Landscapes’ were inspired by the dramatic scenery of Wellington. Michael gave performances of many of these works around Wellington, including a lunchtime concert at Expressions in Upper Hutt, in June 2016.
Since ‘Landscapes’ Michael has completed a number of new compositions for solo guitar. Many of these have been filmed, and can be viewed on YouTube. Michael began collaborating with Riddell Productions in late 2018, and the Wellington-based production company has filmed him performing some of his most recent works.
Michael competed in the Biennial New Zealand International Classical Guitar Competition in December 2018, and played a programme of his own compositions. He won the Prize for the Best Performance of a New Zealand Work, with his piece ‘Resurrecting the Dream’.
Michael teaches guitar to students of all ages, levels, and styles at his home studio in Khandallah, Wellington.
Here is the programme he will play (they are all my pieces):

The Art of Courage (2.5 mins)
From the Roaring Forties (3.5 mins)
Coral Coast Suite (10 mins)
‘Resurrecting the Dream’, which is about 5 mins.

Michael Riddell

Michael Riddell is a Wellington-based composer, guitarist and singer. From a young age, he has enjoyed telling stories, and his musical interests have largely coalesced around that; he started playing classical guitar at age 5, and studied composition and classical guitar at the NZSM, with teachers including Jane Curry, John Psathas, Michael Norris and Kenneth Young.

For this double-bill of guitarist-composers in June, he will be playing four movements from his new suite The Chamber of Colours, plus the slow movement of his last suite: The Ill-Made Knight.
Here is a video of the third movement .