AWE FESTIVAL 2026 | Chamber Music Festival in the Southern Alps

QUEENSTOWN LAKES | 3-16 October

Bounds and Bridges: Beyond the lines At the World’s Edge

The chamber festival pushing the thresholds of music: blurring, dissolving and entwining lines through masterfully crafted programmes, internationally acclaimed artists and awe-striking scapes. Join us in the Southern Lakes of Aotearoa New Zealand this October to connect At the World’s Edge 2026.

1 | CROSSED
Sat 3 Oct | 4pm & 7pm
Rippon, Wānaka
Adults $70 | Students $25

Crossed opens AWE 2026 into a landscape where moral, political, and spiritual lines are tested, crossed, and redrawn. Music composed in the aftermath of occupation, conflict, and political upheaval traces a journey from fracture and uncertainty toward luminous clarity.

Grażyna Bacewicz Quartet for Four Violins
Johann Sebastian Bach Jesu, meine Freude BWV 358
Michael Norris Exitus, III. Niflheim (“The House of Mists”)
Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet in C major, op.59, no.3

2 | BETWEEN
Sun 4 Oct | 2pm & 5pm

Rippon, Wānaka
Adults $70 | Students $25

Between then explores what lies beneath the surface of music: the hidden structures, unspoken emotions, and unseen connections that reveal themselves through shared experience. At its heart is the world premiere of Michael Norris' AWE 2026 commission, conceived in dialogue with a new sculptural work by Ed Cruickshank, where meaning exists simultaneously in physical and sonic form.

Caroline Shaw Plan & Elevation
Michael Norris AWE 2026 Commission for string trio
Robert Schumann String Quartet in A minor, op. 41, no. 3

3 | STRUNG
Mon 5 Oct | 7:30pm
Te Atamira, Queenstown
Adults $70 | Students $25

Featuring AWE Festival Artists David Fung and Matthew Lipman, performing alongside returning AWE 2026 Pettman Scholars Matthew Seinafo and Christine Jeon, Strung traces connections across generations, where musical lines are passed, reshaped, and renewed.

Maurice Ravel Mother Goose Suite for four hands
Rebecca Clarke Lullaby & Grotesque for viola and cello
Jessie Montgomery Rhapsody No.2 for viola
Michael Norris Solo piano collection: Kahurangi, Awaroa, Te pohuri o te Rangipoheka & Rauoterangi
Claude Debussy Estampes for solo piano
Maurice Ravel La Valse for solo piano
Adolfo Berio Maria Isabella Waltz for four hands

4 | WOVEN
Thur 8 Oct | 6pm
Cloudy Bay Shed, Cromwell
Limited Release | $150

Woven explores how independent musical lines coexist, separate, and reunite, tracing this dialogue across cultures and millennia, from one of the oldest surviving notated melodies to music rooted in the landscapes and traditions of Aotearoa. As the sun sets behind the Pisa Range, AWE's special evening paired with Cloudy Bay Wines mirrors the programme's own journey: lines of music and light slowly separating, transforming, and finding each other again.

Iannis Xenakis Dhipli Zyia for violin and cello
Tonu Kõrvits Five Bagatelles for two violins
Rebecca Clarke Lullaby & Grotesque for viola and cello
Michael Norris Prolation canon on an ancient Hurrian hymn to Nikkal (c. 1400BC)
Michael Norris Waipounamu for solo violin and fixed media
Claude Debussy String Quartet

During the evening, Festival Director Justine Cormack will also host a Q&A with this year’s Composer in Residence, Michael Norris.

5 | RADIANCE
Fri 9 Oct | 7:30pm
Te Atamira, Queenstown
Adults $70 | Students $25

Radiance explores music drawn along the threshold between presence and distance, memory and vastness. From the incomprehensible scale of deep space to the intimacy of nocturnal reflection, musical lines drift, suspend, and hover between what is present and what is remembered, what is near and what lies beyond the reach of human scale.

Michael Norris Deep Field II for violin and live electronics
Franz Schubert Notturno for violin, cello and piano
Krzysztof Penderecki String Quartet No.3 ‘Leaves from an Unwritten Diary’
Johann Sebastian Bach Chorale
Arvo Pärt Summa for string quartet
Caroline Shaw Entr’acte for string quartet

6 | UNBROKEN
Sat 10 Oct | 2pm & 5pm
Coronation Hall, Bannockburn
Adults $70 | Students $25

Unbroken explores the spaces where histories, identities, and musical lines cross, transform and endure. From a New Zealand soldier carrying his violin through the First World War to a string trio composed at the edge of annihilation, the programme traces the fragile yet unbreakable thread of music as it transcends centuries, borders, and the darkest moments of human experience.

Michael Norris Prolation Canon on a Theme by Hildegard von Bingen for spatialised string quartet
Sebastian Black Aitken’s Violin for solo violin
AWE 2026 Emerging composer New work for string quartet
Michael Norris Time dance for two violins, cello and piano
Gideon Klein String Trio
Antonin Dvorák Piano Quartet in E-flat major, op.87

7 | THE LINE
Sun 11 Oct | 2pm & 5pm
Te Atamira, Queenstown
Adults $70 | Students $25

Our final programme, The Line, brings the festival to a close in Queenstown with a programme that traces music's most essential journey: from a single footprint in an empty landscape, through voices shaped by love, loss, and encounter, to a musical line forcibly rewritten by history, revealing music's enduring ability to connect us across time.

Claude Debussy De Pas sur la Neige for solo piano
Luciano Berio Violin Duos
Michael Norris The Spaces in Between for piano trio
Anton Webern Langsamer Satz for string quartet
Erich Wolfgang Korngold Piano Quintet, op.15

AWE 2026 Festival Artists:

Benjamin Baker (NZ/UK), Violin
Justine Cormack (NZ), Violin
Florian Donderer (GERMANY), Violin
Marike Kruup (Estonia), Violin
Monique Lapins (NZ), Violin
Matthew Lipman (USA), Viola
Julia Joyce (NZ),Viola
Tanja Tetzlaff (Germany), Cello
Matthias Balzat (NZ), Cello
David Fung (Australia), Piano

AWE 2026 Composer in Residence:

Michael Norris (NZ)

AWE 2026 Scholars:

Christine Jeon (NZ), Cello
Matthew Seinafo (NZ), Piano

Visit www.worldsedgefestival.com for further programme details, full artist information, multiple free performances and events to deepen the AWE experience.

Contact the host of At the World's Edge Festival 2026