Comfy Concert & CD launch - The Chamber Pot Pourri Ensemble & friends

The Chamber Pot Pourri & Friends on Saturday 24 October

• More details about Anna Gawn, mezzo soprano

  Anna Gawn, mezzo soprano

  Vocals, classically trained with Emily Mair at Victoria University, and with Inci Bashar in Missouri. Anna has had the privilege of giving premier performances of Ross Harris’s moving and beautiful Yiddish songs. Her dramatic vocals and brilliant rapport with audiences creates a vibrant layer of expression and colour.

• More details about Ross Harris, Arts Laureate, composer and performer

  Ross Harris, Arts Laureate, composer and performer

  Accordion, former NZSO French horn player and lecturer at Victoria University, is one of New Zealand’s leading composers. He became an Arts Laureate in 2015 and is the recipient of numerous other prizes and awards. His symphonies and numerous chamber works are recorded and performed both here and in Europe.

• More details about Helen Pohl, violin

  Helen Pohl, violin

  Helene Pohl’s musicianship and mentoring have made an indelible mark on New Zealand’s cultural life since she moved there in February 1994 to become the first violinist of the New Zealand String Quartet. As first violinist of the San Francisco based Fidelio String Quartet (1988-1993), Helene performed extensively in the USA, Germany, England, Italy and South America. The Fidelio Quartet was a prize winner in the 1991 London International String Quartet Competition. Helene was the first violinist of the New Zealand String Quartet from 1994 to 2024. As well as performing more than 2000 concerts worldwide with the group and recording dozens of CDs she was also a devoted teacher to a select group of students as well as coaching chamber music at Victoria University’s New Zealand School of Music Te Kōki. She has played concertos around New Zealand, including the world premiere of Louise Webster’s concerto “In Hollowed Bone I Hear the Seas Roar,” written for her in 2016. In 2001 she became Artistic Director, with fellow quartet member Gillian Ansell, of the Adam Chamber Music Festival. She is also the Patron of Arohanui Strings+, the longest running Sistema music teaching programme in New Zealand. Helen is the founder and chief organiser of the Queen’s Birthday Chamber Music Weekend (now the Chamber Music Mega Weekend) in Wellington for young chamber musicians preparing for the New Zealand National Chamber Music Contest. She is violinist of the piano trio Korimako and teaches at the Wellington String Academy. In 2025 she founded Comfy Concerts, a chamber music series benefiting local charities. In 2014 she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her outstanding services to music in New Zealand.

  • Helen Pohl, violin's website
• More details about Rolj Gjelsten, cello

  Rolj Gjelsten, cello

  Rolf was part of our New Zealand String Quartet from 1994 to 2024, touring at home and abroad, making recordings, teaching at NZ School of Music and giving masterclasses. Through his career he has performed with such eminent artists as Menahem Pressler, Anton Kuerti, Piers Lane, Kathryn Stott, Franco Gulli, Zoltan Szekely, Nobuko Imai, Frans Helmerson, Colin Carr, James Campbell, Gervaise de Peyer, and members of the Hungarian, Tokyo, Vermeer, Prazak. Takacs and Jerusalem String Quartets. At just 22, Rolf joined the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in Germany before furthering his cello studies with Zara Nelsova and chamber music with eminent groups as the LaSalle, Hungarian, Vermeer, Cleveland and Emerson string quartets. Rolf was a member of the Laurentian Quartet for almost a decade, toured internationally as well as teaching cello at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. He was also a member of the New York Piano Trio, as well as playing regularly with organ legend Anthony Newman and the Collegium Musicum of New York. Rolf studied with Casals protégé Bernard Greenhouse at Rutgers University from where he received his doctoral degree. He has given masterclasses all over the world, including at Peabody Conservatory, Rice University, Banff School of Fine Arts, and Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik. In 2015, Rolf premiered and recorded Gareth Farr’s “Dear Horizon” cello concerto with the Royal NZ Ballet and the NZ Army Band. He became a New Zealand citizen in 1997 and was made a member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to music in 2014.