Performed by the New Zealand String Quartet at the Adam Summer Celebration, Nelson Centre of Musical Arts, February 2021.
The New Zealand String Quartet (left to right: Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, Gillian Ansell, Rolf Gjelsten) Photo: NZSQ
Louise Webster writes about This Memory of Earth,
“Our earliest memories of the land shape who we are, who we become. Early experiences are stored as implicit memory, formed before conscious recollection is possible, but remembered by our bodies, our senses, our emotional responses as we move through life. At a time when our world is under such threat, these threads of memory nudge us, reminding us of what we must hold, treasure, reclaim, rebuild; the smell of rain, the coolness of shadowy trees, the pull of the sea, the cry of a bird in the night”.
The title This Memory of Earth is borrowed from Ruth Dallas’s poem Fields in Midsummer.
Recorded by Bob Bickerton in the Nelson Centre of Music Arts, February 2021 and made available to RNZ through the Adam Chamber Music Festival.
