Continuing our run-down of the classical music you mustn’t miss in 2024, this week, it’s the turn of Orchestra Wellington and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
Orchestra Wellington
After the delights of 2023, Orchestra Wellington (OW) music director Marc Taddei has produced another ambitious season, programmed around the theme “the story of music”. There are no international soloists, but New Zealand’s busiest violinist (and concertmaster) Amalia Hall gets a couple of concertos – Bach and Korngold – on top of Beethoven with the CSO, Haydn with the Auckland Philharmonia, various overseas engagements and a full season with NZTrio. Hall’s NZTrio colleague Somi Kim plays Taillefaire’s lovely Piano Concerto (July 6). Complaints? Just one mainstage composition by a New Zealander, Hour of Lead, from OW composer-in-residence Eve de Castro-Robinson.
If you can go to only one
Many will be drawn to The Jazz Age (November 9), OW’s complete Porgy and Bess presented in Russ Garcia’s jazzy arrangement. My pick is A Modern Hero (December 7), in which de Castro-Robinson’s work precedes Britten’s monumental War Requiem.
Also consider: The Secret Society (September 28). A French programme featuring the New Zealand premiere of Florent Schmitt’s lush, mysterious The Tragedy of Salome. Schmitt was friends with Stravinsky and dedicated the work to him. The Russian loved Salome so much it is said to have inspired The Rite of Spring.
Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
The 10th concert season under chief conductor Benjamin Northey is really quite something, with interesting music wherever you turn. This year, the CSO is also the orchestra most willing to back local composers; a majority of concerts have at least one New Zealand work – bravo. Many of the soloists are Kiwis, too, but if you’re in Christchurch in September, you can hear one of the world’s leading baritones, Englishman Roderick Williams, who will be a soloist in Fauré's Requiem.
If you can go to only one
Whitehead, Kuusisto, Sibelius (June 15). The grande dame of New Zealand music, Gillian Whitehead (represented by Retrieving the fragility of peace, dedicated to the late Lyell Cresswell), is flanked by a pair of Finns. Northey, who trained at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, should feel right at home, particularly in Sibelius’s Symphony No 2, the first work he conducted with the CSO. The Kuusisto piece, a violin concerto, will be played by Sydney Symphony concertmaster Andrew Haveron.
Also consider: Ligeti, Harris, Shaw, Dvořák (October 19). Two clarinet concertos here, from New Zealander Ross Harris and jazz man Artie Shaw. The latter work, great fun if only nominally classical music, will have you dancing in the aisles. Regular visitor Julian Bliss, to whom Harris’s piece is dedicated, does woodwind duties. Ligeti’s Romanian Concerto and Dvořák’s Symphony No 8 bring more than mere folky charm. l
