Orchestra Wellington's 2017 Season

Orchestra Wellington's 2017 Season

Orchestra Wellington has revealed its full programme for 2017. Called The Impresario, the Orchestra’s 2017 season focuses on music inspired by Sergei Diaghilev.

Diaghilev’s commissions for his Ballets Russes resulted in some of the most phenomenal music of the early 20th century. Stravinsky wrote his greatest ballets for Diaghilev, and the orchestra will play all three: Firebird, Petrouchka and the Rite of Spring.

Diaghilev commissioned Ravel’s orchestral masterpiece, Daphnis and Chloe, as well as La Valse.

They feature in the Orchestra’s 2017 programme, as well as Ravel’s other dance-inspired works, the Noble and Sentimental Waltzes and his arrangement of Schumann’s Carnavale.

Debussy was another star of the Parisian music scene approached by Diaghilev. The resulting score, Jeux, is a feast of musical colours.

Soloists next year include pianist Michael Houstoun, who plays two concertos in one concert that share the key of D minor: Mozart’s dramatic Piano Concerto No. 20 and Brahms’ mighty First Piano Concerto. Stephen De Pledge will perform Schumann’s beloved Piano Concerto and Jian Liu will perform an equally beloved work inspired by it, the Grieg Piano Concerto.

Australian violinist Suyeon Kang will play Nielsen’s Violin Concerto and Gisborne International Concerto Competition winner Jun Hong Loh will return to New Zealand to play a violin concerto by Orchestra Wellington’s Composer in Residence, John Elmsly.

The orchestra’s Jack Body Composer in Residence, Tabea Squire, is writing Colour Lines, a work combining Lower Hutt’s El SIstema-inspired Arohanui Strings with Orchestra Wellington.

Another theme of the year is the artist’s journey towards mastery. The season opens with Beethoven’s First Symphony, a piece that shows how thoroughly he understood the lessons of his predecessors while hinting at the greatness to come. It is paired with the Firebird, which was Stravinsky’s debut on the world stage. The season ends with Stravinsky’s masterwork, the Rite of Spring, paired with Beethoven’s Third Symphony, which announced the fulfilment of his promised genius.

ends