For the first time in 2024, Principal Conductor Gemma New joins the NZSO to conduct Mahler’s epic fifth symphony in a programme stacked with big ideas.

Salina Fisher’s Kintsugi was inspired by the Japanese tradition of mending broken pottery with golden seams of lacquer – a fine metaphor for “embracing ‘brokenness’ and imperfection.”

American composer Adam Schoenberg was inspired by both the climate catastrophe threatening our natural world and the ancient use of percussion in storytelling. From this, his percussion concerto Losing Earth was born. We welcome its dedicatee, San Francisco Symphony’s Principal Percussionist, Jacob Nissly, as the work’s brilliant soloist.

Just as Losing Earth addresses a turning point in our natural world, so, too, does Mahler’s Fifth Symphony address a turning point in Mahler’s personal world. His Fifth was written in the wake of not only suffering a serious hemorrhage but also meeting his eventual wife, Alma. It is for her the symphony’s famous Adagietto was written: an orchestral love song for the ages.