A Winter Feast of Mozart and Beethoven with the NZSO

A Winter Feast of Mozart and Beethoven with the NZSO

Two great works by two of the giants of classical music will be performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Napier, Tauranga, Auckland and New Plymouth in June.

Mozart & Beethoven will feature NZSO Section Principal Bassoon Robert Weeks playing Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto, the most famous work ever written for the instrument.

Mozart wrote the concerto when he was 18 years old, “but it is no juvenile jaunt” says Weeks.

“For me this piece is a delight to perform – full of energy and light. Yet it is also relentlessly demanding in the technical sense.

“As orchestral bassoonists we spend most of our time blending and matching at the back of the stage, so it will be great to get out front to publicise this lesser-known instrument. If you like Mozart, or want to hear a bassoon up close and out front, this concert is for you.”

Acclaimed conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya will also lead the Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s sublime Symphony No.8, considered the most joyous of the composer’s nine symphonies

Grammy-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Harth-Bedoya last conducted the NZSO in 2016, delighting audiences and critics. The Dominion Post praised the conductor for “a rhythmically sharp, exciting performance”, while the Taranaki Daily News loved his ability to conjure “a brilliant display of orchestral colour.”

On this tour he will continue to introduce his Peruvian culture and heritage to New Zealand audiences with the inclusion of Jimmy Lopez’s mesmerising Fiesta!, following performances of Lopez’s Perú Negro in 2015.

Critics have highlighted Lopez’s adventurous style and he has won numerous prizes for his works. Fiesta!, commissioned by Harth-Bedoya to mark the centenary of the Lima Philharmonic Society in 2007, is Lopez’s most widely-performed orchestral piece. Its influences include western art music, Latin-American music, Afro-Peruvian music and mainstream pop.

Harth-Bedoya regularly conducts leading American orchestras, including the Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and Baltimore symphonies and the New York Philharmonic, and has conducted the National Orchestra of Spain, Helsinki Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, London Philharmonic and Japan’s NHK Symphony. He is in his 18th season as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in Texas and is also Chief Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

“A conductor has to be like a chef,” he told a Fort Worth newspaper. “You have to have a taste for sound, like a taste for flavours.”

Mozart & Beethoven will also feature the world premiere of New Zealand composer Gareth Farr’s He iwi tahi tātou. It is one of three works by New Zealand composers commissioned this year by the NZSO to commemorate the 250th anniversary in 2019 of Captain James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand and his encounters with Māori. More specifically, Farr’s piece is inspired by Governor William Hobson's greeting to the Māori chiefs as they came forward to sign the Treaty of Waitangi - “He iwi tahi tātou” – “we are all one people”.

ENDS

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