Concertgoers' season of great expectations

Concertgoers feel a sense of expectation around this time of the year, when the major concert-giving organisations release their offerings for the season to come.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was first. "We're going places," its handsome brochure tells us, and they are. Even Taihape will have the chance to hear Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony in April.

Making the annual count-up between Auckland concerts (13) and those in Wellington (24), northerners once again come off a poor second.

Again, the most sorely envied will be the capital's Made in New Zealand concert in May, highlighting Gillian Whitehead's The Improbable Ordered Dance, an Auckland Philharmonia commission from 2000.

Conductors make some welcome returns. Yan Pascal Tortelier sets off the season in April with Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony and Debussy's La Mer, while young Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki ends the series with Mahler's Fifth and Stravinsky's Firebird in November.

In between is Matthias Bamert with Brahms and Bruckner, Alexander Lazarev with Rachmaninov and Shostakovich, while James Judd, in his sole visit for the year, will give us Deryck Cooke's edition of Mahler's Tenth Symphony. Soloists returning from overseas include Jonathan Lemalu and Wendy Dawn Thompson, in Mahlerian mode.

Other familiar names include Barry Douglas and Julian Lloyd Webber, while Italian saxophonist Federico Mondelci debuts in September for the first performances of John Psathas' Saxophone Concerto No 2.

The orchestra provides its own soloists, and some of the best, in its continuing series of shorter commissions.

Watch out for John Rimmer's Hidden Treasures with horn player Ed Allen (April), Michael Norris' Heavy Traffic with contra-bassoonist Hamish McKeich (May), Gillian Whitehead's Karohirohi with harpist Carolyn Mills (July), and Gareth Farr's untitled commission for trombonist David Bremner (August), not forgetting the Lilburn prize-winner in November.

Those searching for expressive esoteric should mark Friday May 26 in their diary when they can be emotionally drenched by the fantastic full fairytale saga of Zemlinsky's The Mermaid.

Alongside the generously funded NZSO, the Auckland Philharmonia shows signs of wear and tear, after a tumultuous year. Next year features 12 main series concerts instead of the usual 15, all in the Auckland Town Hall, under the banner title of APN News & Media Premier Series. APN is the publisher of the Herald.

Most conductors are new names, apart from Alexander Liebreich with an all-Mozart night in May, and Xian Zhang tackling The Rite of Spring in September.

Some soloists are already popular, such as the two cellists opening and closing the season - Li Wei with the Shostakovich First in February and Thorlief Thedeen with Dvorak in October.

In between, watch out for Feng Ning, winner of this year's Michael Hill International Violin Competition bringing Bruch's Scottish Fantasia, and Australian baritone Michael Lewis, so memorable as NBR New Zealand Opera's Rigoletto last year, who will bring Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death in September.

Despite budget woes and no-shows, the Auckland Philharmonia still offers valiant support for the New Zealand composer, with two full-scale commissions - Christopher Blake's Aoraki Concerto, played by Natalia Lomeiko in March and, three months later, a Ross Harris song cycle written for Lexus Song Quest winner Madeleine Pierard.

In September, the AP undertakes the North Island premiere of John Psathas' View from Olympus, the percussion and piano concerto written for Manchester's Commonwealth Games. Marc Taddei conducts, and pianist Michael Houstoun and percussionist Lenny Sakofsky promise to be suitably Olympian sparring partners.

Hardy perennials such as Dvorak's New World Symphony and a slice of Beethoven (in this case the Seventh Symphony) are inevitable, but those who delight in the offbeat will applaud the programming of Busoni's Sarabande and Cortege, John Adams' The Chairman Dances, and Stravinsky's The Song of the Nightingale.

Chamber Music New Zealand's Celebrity Season is regrettably low on local commissions, with only Anthony Ritchie included in Divertissement's programme for its June visit.

But how churlish it would be not to welcome return visits from String Quartets such as the Jerusalem, Goldner and St Lawrence, especially when the American group brings their latest commission from composer Jonathan Berger.

Finally, a tip to those who don't mind a short trip and perhaps a spot of mid-winter motel visiting. Keep an eye on the schedules of the various associate societies, which do sterling work under Chamber Music New Zealand's banner.

You can catch violinist Feng Ning in recital in Hamilton in June, or that fine oboist Robert Orr in tandem with pianist Richard Mapp in Tauranga in September.

Warkworth in May offers the chance to see how the Talisker brass trio accommodate a Berio Sequence and Sondheim's Send in the clowns in the same programme, while the chutzpah of the title for Wendy Dawn Thompson's recital (The Last Lousy Moments of Love) will warrant the trip to Te Awamutu in August.