Orchestra Wellington Announces Season 2018

Orchestra Wellington Announces Season '18 with Solo Performances by Concertmaster Amalia Hall

Two solo performances by virtuoso 28-year-old violinist Amalia Hallheadline Orchestra Wellington’s Season ’18.

Orchestra Wellington announces its ‘Great And Noble’ season of six ravishing concerts conducted by Marc Taddei at Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre and a one-off performance with Te Vaka of hit music from Disney’s Moana.

Next year’s programme focuses on the symphonies of Antonin Dvorak, finishing with his ninth, and most popular, “New World” symphony.

The extraordinary Czech composer’s music is inextricably linked with the music of his homeland, but his “New World” symphony, Dvorak, also drew on the three years he spent in the United States.

The orchestra’s concertmaster Amalia Hall is playing musical chairs by taking up solo duties including the season opener on June 9th.

This follows her stunning concerto debut last year with Orchestra Wellington and her appointment as the orchestra’s concertmaster last December when she became the youngest leader in the country of a professional orchestra.

Hall’s sumptuous violin playing moves audiences with her inherent musicality and natural facility. Such was the case when she premiered Claire Cowan’s Stark Violin Concerto with Orchestra Wellington in 2016. Here Hall performed an avant guard composition on a raised platform shimmering in the spotlight, leaving the audience wanting more.

Hall has serious credentials as a prize-winning violinist on the world stage. She reached the semi-finals of the 15th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, in Poland in 2016. Other prizes include the Postacchini International Violin Competition, the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition, the International Violin Competition "Premio R. Lipizer'', and the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.

Hall will play Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 on Saturday 9th June. She will wrap the series on December 1 premiering a new violin concerto by New Zealand composer Michael Norris. Norris is Orchestra Wellington’s composer-in-residence for 2018.

Michael Houstoun performs Mozart Piano Concerto no. 14 on August 11. Fellow pianist Jian Liu plays Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto on July 7. Orchestra Wellington is introducing Christopher Park, a German-born pianist with Korean roots. He will play Bartok’s Piano Concerto on October 27.

China’s first professional countertenor is coming to Wellington to sing Wild Cherry Tree, a new composition by Gao Ping. The five–movement symphony with songs is telling the story of a wanderer in the Tibetan region of China’s Sichuan province.

Orchestra Wellington’s Gala Concert of Verdi’s Requiem is performed with the Orpheus Choir of Wellington on September 8. Acclaimed singers from across the Tasman, Antoinette Halloran, Soprano, Deborah Humble Mezzo Soprano, Diego Torre, Tenor, and Wellingtonian James Clayton, Bass, take the solo lines.

Moana songwriter, Opetaia Foa’i is debuting with Orchestra Wellington in July to lead his band, Te Vaka, in its first live performance in the country of the soundtrack to Moana. With hit songs 'We Know The Way' and 'How Far I’ll Go’, the show titled ‘Songs of Moana’ features the best movie soundtrack since the Lion King.

ORCHESTRA WELLINGTON Season ’18 – ‘Great and Noble’

GOLDEN CITY

Saturday 9 June, 7.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 38 in D, ‘Prague’

Béla Bartók
Violin Concerto No. 2
Amalia Hall, violin

Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 5 in F major

THE PROPHECY

Saturday 7 July, 7.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Leoš Janáček
Taras Bulba

Benjamin Britten
Piano Concerto in D Major
Jian Liu, Piano

Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 6 in D major

LONDON SYMPHONY

Saturday 11 August, 7.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Gao Ping
Wild Cherry Tree (Orchestra Wellington commission)
Xiao Ma, Countertenor, and Roger Wilson, Bass

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No 14 in E-flat Major
Michael Houstoun, piano

Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 7 in D minor

REQUIEM

Saturday 8 September, 7.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Giuseppe Verdi
Requiem
Antoinette Halloran, Soprano
Deborah Humble Mezzo Soprano
Diego Torre, Tenor
James Clayton, Bass
Orpheus Choir of Wellington

THE RIVER

Saturday 27 October, 7.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Bedřich Smetana
The Moldau

Béla Bartók
Piano Concerto No. 1 in A Major
Christopher Park, Piano

Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 8 in G major

NEW WORLD

Saturday 1 December, 7.30pm
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Overture from Don Giovanni (arr. Busoni)

Michael Norris
Violin Concerto (OW commission)
Amalia Hall, violin

Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World"

www.orchestrawellington.co.nz

ENDS

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