'Rock-star' violinist in concert

Grammy Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich will perform in Napier next month. Photo/Supplied.

Grammy Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich makes his New Zealand Symphony Orchestra debut next month.

Hadelich features in the NZSO's Beethoven & Brahms tour coming to Napier on August 15.

Over the past decade the Italian-born 34-year-old has entered the upper echelon of the violin world and is now a must-see virtuoso.

"Hadelich is a singularly gifted, characterful musician who has a flair for bringing older music into the present tense," The New Yorker said in a recent profile. "When Hadelich first came on the scene, he was noted for his pinpoint brilliance and for his sweet, cultured, almost old-fashioned tone. It was as if a Golden Age violinist had jumped out of the grooves of a 78 rpm record."

In recent years Hadelich has also been praised for his interpretations of modern composers. When he performed a Shostakovich Violin Concerto in the United States earlier this year, one reviewer likened him to a rock star. "Hadelich wielded his axe, a 1723 Stradivarius, as a guitar god handles his Stratocaster, spinning a complex, emotional story on his violin."

Hadelich has been praised for his performances of key works from the violin repertoire and in Beethoven & Brahms will play Beethoven's Violin Concerto - the only violin concerto written by the great composer.

Beethoven & Brahms is the third of NZSO music director Edo de Waart's 2018 Masterworks series. De Waart has previously worked with Hadelich and was keen to introduce him to New Zealand audiences.

"He is a beautiful player," says de Waart. "Beethoven's Violin Concerto is not an easy concerto that every violin virtuoso can play. He's great at it."

The NZSO will also perform Brahms' lush, romantic and uplifting Symphony No2. Brahms took 20 years to write his First Symphony to a mixed response from audiences and critics. But his Second Symphony, which premiered a year later, was fully embraced and is still an audience favourite.

"It's a great symphony," de Waart says.