Former Hawke's Bay resident, composer Dylan Lardelli is a bright light to follow in New Zealand's contemporary music scene. This up-and-coming 34-year-old's achievements already indicate that he has a promising future ahead of him.
Immediately following university studies, he held the position of composer-in-residence with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, beforetravelling in 2006 to Venice to study with Stefano Bellon on a Creative New Zealand Edwin Carr Scholarship. From 2009-2010 he worked with Dieter Mack at the Lubeck Musikhochschule in Germany on a German Academic Exchange.
Other scholarships and awards include first place in the Asian Composers League Young Composers' Competition in Tokyo in 2003 with his compositions performed in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.
His works have been programmed in international events including the Gaudeamus music week held in Amsterdam and the Darmstadt New Music Festival.
As a guitarist Lardelli has also made his mark through performances with some of New Zealand's foremost classical music ensembles and orchestras including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Stroma and 175 East.
He's always had a quiet sense of confidence and purpose about him and a fine aesthetic sensibility and innate musicality underpins his work.
He has also just put the finishing touches to a work he was commissioned to write for the NZ String Quartet and the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra. The work called Secrets Listening to the Gin is scored for string quartet, zhongruan, guzheng and sheng with male vocalist Xiao Ma. The work will be recorded in Beijing in December; then performed in the New Zealand Festival and toured by Chamber Music New Zealand in March 2014.
