Canadian Baroque Star to Perform with NZSO in Wellington

Canadian Baroque Star to Perform with NZSO in Wellington

Virtuoso Canadian violinist Aisslinn Nosky will direct and perform with players from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s string section in a special concert of Baroque music in Wellington on 17 November.

NZSO Plays Baroque Masters features works by Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann and Geminiani from the Baroque period 1600-1750. The concert will be in the intimate setting of St Andrew’s on the Terrace.

Nosky is a former member of Canada’s world-acclaimed Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, which performed in Wellington in 2012 as part of the New Zealand Festival. She is concertmaster for the high-profile Boston-based Handel and Haydn Society, the longest continuously performing arts organisation in North America.

She is also lauded for her solo performances. The Toronto Star dubbed her “Toronto’s Eric Clapton of the violin”.

“To me, Baroque music really wears its emotional heart on its sleeve,” says Nosky. “All you have to do is look at the plot and text of any Baroque opera to see that the intensity of every human emotion was meant to be experienced front and centre in the music. I find it thrilling to perform because when I am trying to convey these emotions to my audience, I am really feeling them as I go.”

Plans for the Wellington concert came about after NZSO violinist Anne Loeser invited Nosky to New Zealand to hold a workshop with some of the Orchestra’s players. “In 2012 I found Wellington extremely beautiful and welcoming and I had been looking for opportunities to visit again.”

All the music in the concert was written to be directed by the performers themselves rather than a conductor, Nosky says.

“It feels very natural to me to perform the repertoire this way and I think it's because the composers were the players themselves. That was standard practice in the 18th century. Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, even Mozart and later Beethoven, all gained their initial fame as performers rather than solely as composers.”

NZSO Plays Baroque Masters:

VIVALDI Violin Concerto in A minor
HANDEL Concerto Grosso in G minor
VIVALDI Concerto in D minor
TELEMANN Don Quixote
GEMINIANI Concerto Grosso in D minor La Follia

St Andrew’s on the Terrace | Friday 17 November | 6pm

ENDS

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