New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
NZSO
Postal Address
PO Box 6640
Wellington 6141
New Zealand
Physical Address
L2, MOB Building
101 Wakefield Street 6011
Wellington
Tel: +64 4 801 3890
Fax: +64 4 801 3891
0800 479 674
Email: info@nzso.co.nz
Website: www.nzso.co.nz
No of members: 90
No of performances: over 100 performances a year
Peter Walls Chief Executive
Pietari Inkinen Music Director
James Judd Music Director Emeritus
Franz-Paul Decker Conductor Laureate
Orchestra Biography
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is this country’s only professional full-size orchestra. One of the world’s oldest national symphony orchestras, we’ve been delighting audiences with memorable concerts and recordings since 1946.
We’re continually on the road, touring as many as 100 symphonic concerts as well as dozens of dedicated concerts for children and small communities each year. While we present all our main programmes in Auckland and Wellington, we tour New Zealand extensively.
We perform in concert halls, schools, marae, hospitals, parks, rest homes and even on railway platforms. You’ll hear us on radio, television, in movies and on CD. You can download our music and keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter. Our extensive Community and Education programmes take our music to children and young people up and down New Zealand, giving them a chance to get up close and personal with our players and inspire them towards a life-long love of music.
In November 2010 we returned from the most prestigious and successful international tour in our history. Beginning in Shanghai at the World Expo, we continued to Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland and Austria, where we played in Vienna’s hallowed Musikverein.
For three weeks we played sold-out concerts, often to standing ovations, and drew critical acclaim from the European press. We played Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Berlioz and flew the flag for New Zealand music, including Douglas Lilburn’s Aotearoa and specially-commissioned pieces by Ross Harris.
As the Badische Zeitung newspaper declared, “The orchestra and conductor demonstrated that they can, without fear, allow themselves to be compared with leading European ensembles.” A Swiss newspaper declared us “a sensation” after we performed in Lucerne. The NZ Herald described our Vienna concert as “historic”.
Our Music Director Pietari Inkinen has received fulsome praise in the national and international press for his outstanding abilities, both in concerts and recordings with the NZSO. Our recent release of Sibelius’ Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (Naxos) is drawing critical praise, including a four star review in London’s Financial Times. Earlier our recording of Sibelius Symphonies 1 and 3 prompted Gramophone magazine to declare: “The young Finn draws playing of infectious zeal from the NZSO (what an accomplished band they have become in recent years)…intelligence, tastefulness and honesty are watchwords here” (December 2010).
Now our latest recordings, Sibelius Symphony No. 2 and the Karelia Suite, is attracting warm attention, including this from Gramophone critic Guy Rickards: “The orchestra certainly sound as if they enjoyed themselves, and so should you in their company.”
May 2011
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Season 2012