The NZSO’s Season 2023 in Wellington: from a movie classic to a star violinist

In 2023 NZSO joins with Anne-Sophie Mutter – one of the world’s greatest violinists – for a special concert, featuring the music of cinema legend John Williams.

The concert is just one of more than a dozen concerts and special events the NZSO presents in Te Whanganui-a-Tara during its 2023 Season.

Nationwide in 2023, the Orchestra will perform more than 100 concerts across 21 communities, from Kerikeri to Invercargill.

Mutter is a long-time collaborator with the Academy Award-winning composer, including three albums together since 2019.

Her performance, led by NZSO Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor Gemma New, features Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 2, written especially for the Grammy Award-winning virtuoso. She will also perform several of Williams’ movie themes, arranged by Williams for Mutter and orchestra.

Also in 2023, the NZSO will be led in Wellington for the first time by esteemed German conductor André de Ridder.

De Ridder is known for his work across music genres, ranging from classical and opera, to electronic and pop. He’s featured on albums by Gorillaz, electronic duo Mouse on Mars, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Max Richter’s hit 2012 interpretation of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

With the NZSO, de Ridder’s three concert programmes include a work by Bryce Dessner of American band The National, jazz great Wynton Marsalis’ Blues Symphony and the outstanding contemporary work Become Ocean by Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winner John Luther Adams.

Other international soloists and conductors to join with the NZSO for its Wellington performances include English pianist Paul Lewis, who will play two of Beethoven’s piano concertos. With the NZSO conducted by Brazilian Eduardo Strausser, the concert follows Lewis’ critically acclaimed Beethoven performances with the NZSO in Auckland in 2022.

Celebrated American pianist Joyce Yang returns for concerts in Wellington with the NZSO conducted for the first time by six-time Grammy Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero.

Another legendary conductor to make his NZSO debut is the renowned Sir Donald Runnicles in concerts with sought-after German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt.

Large-scale productions and special collaborations also feature in the NZSO’s 2023 Season.

The Orchestra has partnered with New Zealand Opera to stage a critically acclaimed new interpretation of Béla Bartók’s operatic masterpiece Bluebeard’s Castle.

This production of the Hungarian composer’s only opera is a hit reimagining that premiered in London in 2021 to universal praise. The newly formed company Theatre of Sound set Bluebeard’s Castle, first staged in 1918, in the present day and focussed on a married couple facing the devastating reality of dementia.

In place of the infamous seven locked doors in traditional productions, the reimagined Bluebeard’s Castle features a single trunk containing relics of the couple’s past. The Guardian praised the new interpretation of Bluebeard’s Castle as “a devastating piece of theatre” with singing and acting of “astonishing emotional nakedness and detailed veracity”.

Mahler’s monumental Third Symphony – one of the longest symphonies ever written – will comprise more than 100 musicians, two-time Grammy Award-winning alto Sasha Cooke, Voices New Zealand and multiple children’s choirs.

The NZSO kicks off 2023 in Wellington with West Side Story Film with Live Orchestra, two screenings of the Academy Award-winning 1961 film where the Orchestra performs Leonard Bernstein’s electrifying score live while the newly re-mastered film is shown in glorious high definition on the big screen with the original vocals and dialogue intact.

In March, an ensemble of NZSO players presents Mozart & Salieri, highlighting works by the two composers. Brandenburg is a celebration of Baroque, including JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.

NZSO Chief Executive Peter Biggs said that with Aotearoa New Zealand reconnecting with the world, the Orchestra is proud to bring audiences more of the best international artists and an array of top Kiwi talent.

“Anne-Sophie Mutter, Paul Lewis, Joyce Yang, Sasha Cooke, Nicolas Altstaedt, André de Ridder, Giancarlo Guerrero and Sir Donald Runnicles are among the most talented and revered artists in music today. To have them alongside our best musicians and conductors in 2023 is exciting for both the Orchestra and audiences.”