NZSO set to wow in Napier

The Cello Concerto will feature pre-eminent 28-year-old Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan. Photo / Supplied

A Grammy-nominated conductor, a star cellist and an award-winning young Kiwi composer are set to wow audiences in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's four-city concert tour this month, with a concert in the Napier Municipal Theatre at 7pm on Thursday, 25 May.

The Pathétique - Tchaikovsky and Dvorák concert tour will be led by 37-year-old Singaporean Darrell Ang who conducted the NZSO's recording of works by Chinese composer Zhou Long that was nominated for a Grammy Award last year.

Maestro Ang was the youngest person to be made Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and has worked with many of the world's well-known orchestras and Asia's top ensembles. "A star is born", judged by Singapore's The Strait Times.

Ang will conduct the NZSO in performances of Tchaikovsky's heart-breaking Symphony No 6 in B minor - Pathétique, Dvorák's richly melodic Cello Concerto in B minor and the stunning Embiosis by New Zealander David Grahame Taylor.

An air of mystery surrounds Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony. This dark and indulgently morose symphony, shrouded in tragedy, is linked to the deaths of both Josefina, Tchaikovsky's great love, and Tchaikovsky himself. Audiences are sure to be carried away by the haunting and beautiful melodies of this famous work.

The Cello Concerto will feature pre-eminent 28-year-old Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, hailed by The Washington Post as a "seasoned phenomenon" and winner of one of the world's most prestigious music prizes at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Hakhnazaryan enthralled audiences when he toured with the NZSO in 2014 when he said: "The most important thing is to have a connection between the orchestra, the conductor and the soloist, and I think that's what we have with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra".

Taylor is a rising star among New Zealand composers and has garnered an international reputation since winning the Orchestra Choice Award at the 2013 NZSO Todd Young Composer Awards.

"I'm very excited to be working with Darrell Ang and the wonderful musicians of the NZSO, and to have been given the opportunity to share this short yet powerful work with audiences around the country," he says. Based in San Francisco where he is completing his MMus in Composition, one of Taylor's most recent works, Within a Forest Dark, was premiered in San Francisco last year. It won Taylor the Highsmith Award, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's top composition prize.

* Pre-concert talk by NZSO members Brigid O'Meeghan, Kirstin Eade and Vicky Crowell at 6.15 pm.
Tickets $35-$70. Concession $30-$68 (plus fees).