Flight chaos forces NZSO to drop symphony hours before Auckland concert

The NZSO has had to swap Bruckner for Mozart after key orchestral players were stranded in Wellington this morning. Photo / NZSO

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has been forced to make a major change to a scheduled performance, due to flight cancellations across the country this morning.

Tonight’s Joyce DiDonato - Summer Nights concert in Auckland will no longer feature Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony as grounded flights have stranded several key orchestral members in Wellington.

The complex composition is one of the composer’s most well-known, requiring a varied range of instrumentation.

Spokesperson for NZSO Tom Cardy said more than 80 musicians are needed for the work, requiring players in nearly every section.

“To perform the Seventh Symphony with anything less than what is required would erode artistic excellence and impact on the audience experience of this epic hour-long piece.”

The piece is set to be replaced with Mozart’s Symphony No.41 ‘Jupiter’.

“While we are disappointed that we cannot perform Bruckner at Auckland Town Hall tonight, we encourage all Auckland ticket holders to watch a free On Demand filmed version of our Wellington performance of the Seventh Symphony yesterday,” NZSO told concert attendees.

One concertgoer shared his disappointment with the news, commenting he wouldn’t have bought tickets for Mozart - nor flights.

Earlier today, domestic and international flights were affected by a software issue on Airbus A320 aircrafts around the world.

Travellers flying with both Air New Zealand and JetStar were impacted by the chaos.

Air New Zealand chief safety and risk officer Nathan McGraw confirmed 12 of the airline’s services were cancelled as a result of the issue.

Services had resumed by about midday after a patch was rolled out to address the problem.

“It is important for customers to know that this is a precautionary software update and does not present an immediate safety risk to our flights”, McGraw said.