Christoph's update

Well, in Austria we have a saying that morning hour puts gold into your mouth. We felt this on the 23^rd of March, when we were picked up by Diana (many thanks for that, Diana!) at 6.30am from our hotel in Wellington to be driven to the Avalon studios to play a “late-night-tango” composed by Astor Piazzolla at 7.15am :)

The interviewer, Brendan Pongia, is a very nice guy and we enjoyed talking with him a lot …as we saw the kitchen in the studio, we immediately had witty ideas to make a video-clip that is about cooking and making music!

On the way back to Wellington we experienced a traffic jam and made jokes about the drive this afternoon to Palmerston North which would be shorter than the way back to the Intercontinental :)

By the way: thanks again a million Diana for your driving up to “Palmie North”: you saved us 10000k of energy for the concert there. It was a great concert for us there: I guess it was a very famous kiwi-pianist [Michael Houstoun] who shouted an extremely loud BRAVO at the end of the concert…so it was a must for us to play an encore and we had a lot of fun!

Arriving late at night in Wellington again, we slept as long as possible the next day till our rehearsal at the Wellington Town Hall in the afternoon. Our evening concert there, recorded by RNZ was a fantastic feeling for us (again!). Well, after that it was time for having a great party time with our Wellingtonian friends.

The same day we had to catch our aircraft at 11am for our Auckland concert with RNZ Concert on board again. After arriving there we had our second emergency fire drill within two weeks in NZ: while having lunch in the food-court of the Crowne-Plaza we had to evacuate the building like we did in the Intercontinental in WellingtonJ: we feel absolutely safe here in NZ. :)

The concert that evening in the Great Hall of the Auckland Town Hall was really like playing in the “Gewandhaus”, the famous European concert hall it was built after. During the reception afterwards we met a lot of lovely “new persons” and also a lot of “old friends”… even some ones from Australia were there!

The next day was for recreation: thanks James for letting me practise 6 hours in your amazing museum! :)

We then spent an unforgettable evening at Alastair's house: thanks a million for your inspiring society!

On Sunday, 27^th of March Florian was our great driver to Hamilton: the concert there was joy from the first to the last note…"Hamiltonians": be proud of the acoustic you have in your Gallagher Theatre!

Well, somehow today we enjoyed so much the lovely weather while our scenic drive from Hamilton to Napier thanks to Florian! The concert here went very well in the Municipal Theatre which was new and a big surprise for us! After the performance we had a lovely chat and a fantastic supper with the CMNZ staff from Napier: you all are gorgeous!

And right now I am sitting in an amazing Art-Deco-Five-Star-Hotel in Hawkes Bay and finish that blog for you while sending my best cheers to you all!

Yours Christoph