An earthquake triggered a radical rethink in NZ, but for some orchestras, playing under duress has become a way of life.

Gretchen La Roche, the Chief Executive Officer of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, remembers exactly where she was at 12.51pm on February 22, 2011 – for that was the moment an earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale hit Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island.

“I was on my lunchbreak in an upstairs café at the Arts Centre, huddled under a table watching the wall on the side of the building fall out and thinking this has to stop soon or we’re just going to have to make a run for it,” recalls La Roche. “As I ran out of the building I actually saw the cathedral collapsing. You could see the dust rising out of the city. A short time after, you could see people being carried out of the rubble and being stretchered out of the city on the back of utes and cars.”

The earthquake lasted 10 seconds, killing 185 people and causing widespread damage from which the city is still recovering as it gradually rebuilds. The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (CSO) had been scheduled to...