A message from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra:
Due to the Covid-19 restrictions currently in place we’ve had to make some changes to the upcoming Podium Series Inspiration concert in and Auckland on 25th September. This concert has been renamed Eroica and the programme will now be:
Miguel Harth-Bedoya Conductor
Vesa-Matti Leppänen Violin
Anthony Ritchie Remember Parihaka
Sibelius Violin Concerto
Beethoven Symphony No. 3 Eroica
Click here for more information on Eroica.
This tour is still dependent on New Zealand returning to Alert Level 1 on Thursday 17 September. If the country remains at Alert Level 2, the concert will be a live-streamed performance only on Friday 18 September without an audience.
All tickets purchased for Inspiration are valid for the renamed Eroica concerts.
Covid-19 continues to challenge all orchestras. While we will continue to perform and tour this year, we must adapt where necessary to ensure our concerts can go ahead. In this instance, social distancing requirements mean we wouldn’t be able to adequately rehearse the original Inspiration programme due to the number of musicians required on stage.
Thank you for your ongoing support and patience. Our goal is to continue to bring great music to you in 2020.
Miguel Harth-Bedoya Conductor
Augustin Hadelich Violin
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol
Sibelius Violin Concerto
Debussy Images Pour Orchestre, II. Ibéria
Ravel Rapsodie Espagnole
Perennial favourite Miguel Harth-Bedoya returns to conduct the NZSO in a sumptuous Spanish-inspired musical feast – with a Finnish cherry on top. The concert opens with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, ripe with Spanish melodies. Both Debussy’s Images, from which Iberia is drawn, and Ravel’s piece Rapsodie Espagnole began life as works for piano, but in these vividly colourful orchestral versions Debussy’s dreamy impressions of Spain and Ravel’s own maternally-inherited Spanish roots are brought here to full flower.
Augustin Hadelich also returns, after wowing New Zealanders in 2018. Named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America and lauded by NPR as capable of evoking “every nuanced colour and ethereal sound the instrument can make”, Hadelich’s superlative violin playing is sure to bring out the evocative flavours of Sibelius’ well-loved Violin Concerto. The only concerto Sibelius ever wrote, its fiendish technical difficultly is matched only by its expressive power. Indeed, musicologist Donald Tovey wrote, “I have not met a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius Violin Concerto.”
