At the World's Edge Festival 2024 opens with Dispersion, an eclectic programme that delves into the intersection where folk music and classical music, and east and west meet. It's only fitting that this opening programme of AWE should be hosted at Te Atamira, the cultural confluence of the Whakatipu basin. 

Festival Directors, Benjamin Baker and Justine Cormack, will be joined by fellow leading lights of the Aotearoa music scene for this opening programme, with Bryony Cornish-Gibson and Serenity Thurlow (both viola) making their AWE debuts. Hungarian pianist, Daniel Lebhardt, US cellist and rising star, Stirling Elliott and American violinist Alexi Kenney will be performing and we will hear from this year's AWE scholars, Madeleine Xiao (piano) and Lorna Zhang (violin) both in the main programme and during the free scholars' showcase.

Dispersion programme: 

- Sergei Prokofiev String Quartet No.2 “Kabardinian”
- Bright Sheng Concertino for clarinet and string quartet
- Eve de Castro-Robinson This liquid drift of light for solo piano
- Béla Bartók Piano Quintet

The free AWE+ programme sees our AWE+ scholars perform with Benjamin Baker (violin) and Morgan Pearse (baritone) in a 30-minute showcase performance of folk inspire pieces from around the world.

Programme:

- Victoria Kelly Waraki for two violins
- Huw Watkins Arietta for violin and piano
- Eugène Ysaÿe Sonata No.5 for solo violin
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Dumka, op.59 “Scenes from a Russian village” for solo piano
- Camille Saint-Saëns Violons dans le soir for baritone, violin and piano

Presented between the two performances of Dispersion at Te Atamira.