Sunday Matinee Series - Benjamin Booker

Admission is by koha, recommended from $10. Benjamin Booker has been inspired and disturbed by music ever since being given a glockenspiel for his first birthday. He began childhood piano lessons in his hometown of Palmerston North, and, having reluctantly departed from that metropolis, furthered his studies in Wellington at Victoria University, emerging a Bachelor of Music with first-class honours in 2012. He has played keyboard in New Zealand’s National Youth Orchestra, concertised with the Manawatū and Whangārei Sinfonias, and received the Original Interpretations prize at Jakarta’s Indonesia Pusaka piano competition. Medical work since then has swept him from the Tai Tokerau to Canterbury to Uganda, and presently he works as a rural generalist in the West Coast, where he divides his time between hospital work and unjamming Te Whatu Ora’s perpetually dysfunctional printers. This year marks his return to the stage since a pothole and an ill-fated motorbike in Africa left him with a pair of broken wrists: a life experience he cannot recommend with any enthusiasm. He would like to acknowledge the wisdom and tenacity of his teachers Guy Donaldson, Richard Mapp, and Jian Liu, as well as Rosa Leggat and the Christchurch hand therapy team. Benjamin this month will be playing the solo piano role for the Beethoven Emperor Piano concerto in New Plymouth. His Palmerston North piano concert will be a welcome return of this talented musician. Admission is by koha, recommended from $10.