Piano Recital

Lineup

• More details about Abhinath Berry

  Abhinath Berry

  Abhinath Berry is a pianist, composer, and educator from Dunedin, New Zealand. He recently completed the Master of Performance programme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied with Dr Alexander Soares. He gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Jessie Wakefield Bursary, the Siga Siga Trust Scholarship, the Mona Semke Trust, the JM Hunn Education Trust, and the late Mike Hazel. Abhinath began teaching himself piano at the age of 15 before commencing formal studies with Blair Professor Terence Dennis in 2019. He graduated from the University of Otago’s School of Performing Arts in 2022 with a Bachelor of Music with First-Class Honours in Performance and Composition. During his undergraduate studies, he was awarded every available prize in performance, composition, and academic music, including the Victor Galway Medal, Simon Gibson Memorial Prize, Charles Begg Prize, Prestige Scholarship in Music, Florence Olive Memorial Prize, and Ida G. White Memorial Prize. He has been the recipient of many of New Zealand’s top national awards, including Creative New Zealand’s Jack McGill Scholarship, the Dame Malvina Major Foundation Arts Excellence Award, the Judith Clark Memorial Fellowship, and the FAME Emerging Practitioner Award. As a Young Artists’ Award recipient of the Wagner Society of New Zealand, Abhinath undertook national recital tours in 2021 and 2023, presenting programmes centred on Liszt’s transcriptions of Wagner. In September 2026, he collaborated with the Wagner Society to present an all-Liszt recital at the 1901 Arts Club in London. Abhinath regularly performs across New Zealand and the United Kingdom. His New Zealand engagements have included recitals in the Chiron Lewis Eady Foundation’s Emerging Artist concert series in Auckland and at the Glenroy Auditorium in Dunedin. In London, he has given concerts at venues including St James’s Piccadilly, St Olave’s Tower Hill, Burgh House, St Stephen Walbrook, and Milton Court. During his studies abroad, he has played for Inna Faliks, János Balázs, and Martin Sturfält in public masterclasses. In 2025, he undertook a recital tour of New Zealand and was selected to attend the Gijón International Piano Festival in Spain, where he studied with Robert McDonald and Douglas Humpherys. Abhinath is also a found. sessions artist. Alongside his performing engagements, Abhinath is an active composer. His Sonata-Fantasie (2022) and String Quartet No. 2 (2021) were awarded the Lilburn Prize, a national award established in memory of prominent New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn. His orchestral work Prologue from Metamorphoses was selected for the Todd Corporation Young Composers’ Award and performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Abhinath is also a dedicated music educator and currently teaches piano privately in London.

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• More details about Terence Dennis

  Terence Dennis

  Terence Dennis was born in Christchurch, is a graduate of the University of Otago and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Cologne, Germany, and currently Blair Professor and Head of Classical Performance studies at the University of Otago. Acclaimed both overseas and in New Zealand for his performances and teaching, Terence has regularly partnered with many distinguished visiting international artists and leading resident artists. Particularly notable is his extensive recital partnership with Dame Kiri te Kanawa, with whom he has given around fifty concerts across the world, including two Royal Recitals, for both Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Frogmore House, Windsor and for the State Visit of Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Of special note was their recital at a World Heritage 9th century temple in Nara, Japan, filmed for Japanese television. Their 2016 recital tour in NZ and Australia was dubbed by one prominent critic as "a sublime partnership". Other noted international collaborations include recital tours with bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel, tenor Simon O'Neill, soprano Margaret Marshall, mezzos Kathleen Kuhlmann and Sarah Walker, recitals with bass-baritone Sir Donald McIntyre, and, amongst many instrumentalists, the German prizewinning cellist Maria Kliegel. Terence has been the official pianist for seven international string competitions, official pianist for the finals of the Mobil and Lexus Song Quests since 1991, more recently the 2018 Lexus Semifinal and Grand Final, and guest adjudicator for the regional finals of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Auditions Contest in the USA. He has been adjudicator of the Lev Vlassenko International Piano Competition in Australia, and on several occasions, adjudicator National Piano Concerto Competition, most recently for the 2019-20 contest. His CD of Piano Works of Wagner & Liszt was issued in 2007, and his recital CD, 'Distant Beloved', featuring German song-cycles by Beethoven, Wagner and Strauss with tenor Simon O'Neill was released internationally by DECCA recordings in 2019. It was the winner in the 2019 NZ Music Awards, Classical, and has been featured both at the Vienna State Opera and at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival as 'CD of the Week'. In 2019, the duo gave the Gala Titus Recital for the Dallas Grand Opera in the United States. Terence is a Trustee of the Kiri te Kanawa Foundation, Trustee of the NZ Wagner Foundation, and National President of the NZ Wagner Society. He was appointed to the NZ Order of Merit in 2004 and is a Fellow both of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the NZ Academy of Humanities.