Three great talents ready to captivate audiences

1 May 2017 – NZSO media release for immediate release

Three great talents ready to captivate audiences

A Grammy-nominated conductor, a star cellist and an award-winning young Kiwi composer are set to wow audiences in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s four-city concert tour this month.

The Pathétique – Tchaikovsky & Dvořák concert tour will be led by Singaporean Darrell Ang, 37, who conducted the NZSO’s recording of works by Chinese composer Zhou Long which was nominated for a Grammy Award last year.

Maestro Ang was the youngest person to be made Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and has worked with many of the world’s best orchestras and Asia’s top ensembles.

“A star is born,” wrote Singapore’s The Strait Times.

Ang will conduct the NZSO in performances of Tchaikovsky’s heart-breaking Symphony No 6 in B minor, Pathétique, Dvořák’s richly melodic Cello Concerto in B minor and the stunning Embiosis by New Zealander David Grahame Taylor.

The Cello Concerto will feature pre-eminent Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, 28, hailed by The Washington Post as a “seasoned phenomenon” and winner of one of the world’s top music prizes for cellists at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Hakhnazaryan enthralled audiences when he toured with the NZSO in 2014. He said at the time: “the most important thing is to have a connection between the orchestra, the conductor and the soloist and I think that's what we have with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra”.

Taylor is a rising star among New Zealand composers aged under 30 and has garnered an international reputation since winning the Orchestra Choice Award at the 2013 New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Todd Young Composer Awards.

“I'm very excited to be working with Darrell Ang and the wonderful musicians of the NZSO, and to have been given the opportunity to share this short yet powerful work with audiences around the country,” he says.

Based in San Francisco to complete his Masters in Music Composition, one of his most recent works Within a Forest Dark premiered in San Francisco last year. It won Taylor the Highsmith Award, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s top composition prize.

ENDS

Pathétique – Tchaikovsky & Dvořák

DARRELL ANG Conductor

NAREK HAKHNAZARYAN Cello

DAVID GRAHAME TAYLOR Embiosis

DVOŘÁK Cello Concerto in B minor

TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathétique

WELLINGTON | Michael Fowler Centre| Saturday 20 May| 7.30pm

NAPIER | Municipal Theatre| Thursday 25 May| 7pm

TAURANGA | Baycourt Theatre| Friday 26 May| 7.30pm

AUCKLAND | Town Hall| Saturday 27 May| 7.30pm

© Scoop Media