Opera and sax superstars join Kiwi Oscar-winner for NZSO in 2025  

One of the world’s greatest opera singers, a sensational chart-topping British saxophonist and Kiwi Oscar-winner Bret McKenzie are part of the star-studded array of artists to perform with us in 2025. 

American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, a multi-Grammy Award and Olivier Award winner, performs for the first time in Aotearoa New Zealand with the NZSO led by Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor Gemma New. 

Hailed as “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation” (The New Yorker) and with a voice “nothing less than 24-carat gold” (The Times) DiDonato performs Berlioz’s spine-tingling song cycle Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights) in Wellington and Auckland. 

British saxophonist Jess Gillam, 26, went to No.1 in the UK classical charts with her first two albums, featuring music from classical composers to Björk, David Bowie and Kate Bush. 

The youngest ever soloist to play at the prestigious Last Night at the Proms, Gillam Aotearoa New Zealand debut features Glazunov’s romantic Saxophone Concerto, and she joins the orchestra for Rachmaninov’s epic Symphonic Dances.  

Oscar-winning musician and comedian Bret McKenzie, who starred alongside the NZSO and The Muppets for the hit Jim Henson Retrospectacle in 2018, hosts the family-friendly Creepy-Crawly Carnival as part of Immerse Rumakina 2025.  

The concerts, with the orchestra led by acclaimed German conductor André de Ridder, feature McKenzie as narrator of Saint-Saëns beloved Carnival of the Animals. The orchestra also performs Roussel’s enchanting The Spider’s Feast: Symphonic Fragments. 

Other international stars to perform with the NZSO in 2025 include Grammy-winner Daniil Trifonov and fellow pianist Javier Perianes, Finnish violinist and conductor Pekka Kuusisto, Austrian cellist Kian Soltani and Welsh flautist Emily Beynon, alongside Kiwi violinist Amalia Hall, taonga puoro specialist Jerome Kavanagh Poutama and NZSO Concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen. 

Legendary Japanese maestro Masaaki Suzuki, a leading authority on Bach, is part of the line-up of top international conductors to lead the NZSO in 2025, which includes Australia’s Simone Young, Portugal’s Joana Carneiro, Italy’s Umberto Clerici, Hungary’s Gábor Káli and NZSO Music Director Emeritus James Judd. 

New also conducts the NZSO’s 2025 Season opener Pictures at an Exhibition, featuring Emily Beynon, and Mahler’s extraordinary Sixth Symphony, a monumental work involving 110 musicians. 

In 2025 Maestro de Ridder leads the winter Immerse Rumakina festival with three concert programmes. The NZSO also tours a selection of Baroque masterpieces, and a special Summer Brass programme led by celebrated American musician and conductor Gail Williams.  

New Zealand works to feature in 2025 include Salina Fisher and Jerome Kavanagh’s Papatūānuku and the world premiere of Victoria Kelly’s Stabat Mater. 

Kelly’s work is a response to Rossini’s famous Stabat Mater, which is also performed in the concert, led by esteemed Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi and featuring soprano Madison Nonoa, mezzo-soprano Anna Pierard, tenor Filipe Manu, bass-baritone Teddy Tahu-Rhodes and Voices New Zealand. 

Canadian Adam Johnson conducts the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in concerts featuring Kiwi soprano Madison Horman.  

Tickets are on sale now for NZSO Members. Full or Lite memberships are available from just $10.

NZSO celebrates Puccini’s opera hits

Two of Australasia’s finest vocalists join with the NZSO in Wellington and Auckland this month to celebrate some of the most iconic music ever written for opera. 

New Zealand soprano Eliza Boom, who won Australia’s prestigious Bel Canto Award in September, and acclaimed Australian tenor Paul O’Neill perform a selection of opera master Puccini’s best known and loved arias. The Puccini hit parade includes arias and scenes from La Bohème, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Gianni Schicchi and Turandot. 

With the NZSO led by renowned Venezuelan-born Spanish conductor José Luis Gómez, the evening also features two engrossing opera instrumental masterpieces: Verdi’s Overture from La Forza del Destino and Mascagni’s Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana. 

Since coming runner up in the 2018 Lexus Song Quest, Boom has become one of New Zealand’s most promising young opera singers. Based since 2020 with Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Munich's state opera company, she’s performed in a variety of productions, which this year has included Cosi fan tutte, Das Rheingold, Hänsel und Gretel and Nixon in China. 

O’Neill over the past decade has forged an international career as a sought-after tenor in both ensemble and leading roles, ranging from Der Rosenkavalier to La Traviata. O’Neill knows his Puccini, which in February this year included a sumptuous outdoor performance of Puccini arias with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. 

Maestro Gómez, Music Director of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, is equally at home in operatic repertoire, having led performances of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, La Bohème at the Frankfurt Opera, Rossini’s La Cenerentola at Stuttgart Opera, and La Forza del Destino at Tokyo’s New National Theatre. 

Music on the menu – enjoy Everybody Eats before our Arias concert

For just $30 you can enhance your NZSO concert experience with a delicious, sustainable three-course pre-concert dinner, served by Everybody Eats in Wellington. Each meal is themed to match the music programme of the NZSO concert that evening. 

Pre-concert dinners are available for the NZSO concert Arias on 24 October, which is our last Everybody Eats for 2024. (They’re back in 2025.) Our Everybody Eats experiences have been very popular, so book now so you don’t miss out! 

Gifted young Musicians ready to shine in Emerging Artists

Aotearoa New Zealand’s best young musicians, aged between 14 and 17, perform as soloists and side by side with the NZSO in a special concert on Tuesday 08 October in Wellington. 

You can also experience the concert, from 7pm, as a free livestream via our streaming platform NZSO+. 

Emerging Artists features six soloists from around the country and 12 young musicians who play side-by-side with the orchestra for performances of unforgettable works from music giants Beethoven, Chopin Elgar, Haydn and more. 

Soloist Alex Wu performs the third movement of Haydn’s renowned Oboe Concerto, while Elise Tian is soloist for movements one and two of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso features violinist Hayden Chiu, while pianist Shan Liu is soloist for the first movement of French composer’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Alex Xuyao Bai performs the third movement of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto and Louis Liu is soloist for the first movement of Reinecke’s Concerto for Flute & Orchestra. 

For the concert the orchestra will be led by NZSO Principal Conductor-in-Residence Hamish McKeich and hosted by NZSO Animateur Chris Lam Sam. 

The young musicians and the NZSO will open the concert with New Zealand composer Sai Natarajan’s Stargazer. Natarajan won the 2023 NZSO Todd Corporation Young Composer Awards Orchestra Choice Award – chosen by NZSO players – for this extraordinary work. 

The concert ends with a side-by-side performance by the young musicians and the NZSO of the famous last movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. 

Tickets to Emerging Artists are only $10.  

Story times with a musical twist

Join the fun during the school holidays by attending one of the free Beyond the Page Festival library events in the Wellington region. 

An ensemble of players and NZSO Animateur Chris Lam Sam present an interactive and fun 40-minute concert of music and storytelling for the whole whānau in Upper Hutt, Paraparaumu, Lower Hutt and Wellington from 11 October. 

Enjoy musical performances of two beloved Kiwi classic picture books – The Little Yellow Digger by Betty Gilderdale and The Bomb by Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan. There will be opportunities to ask questions and meet the musicians at the end of the performance. 

Beyond the Page events are recommended for pre-schoolers and primary school-aged tamariki, along with their caregivers. 

Spaces are limited, so arrive early to secure your space. Please note that the Wellington event on 12 October is full. 

Become an NZSO Chair Sponsor

NZSO Musician’s Chair Sponsors are our greatest ambassadors, with all proceeds raised through this programme directly underpinning our artistic programme.

Gillian Clark generously sponsors NZSO Associate Principal Flute.

To be able to give to something I both love and believe in is a privilege. I love music and in New Zealand we are so fortunate to have such a stable and world-class symphony orchestra. It is something to be treasured and proud of.

Becoming a donor gives one a strong sense of connection with the orchestra; introducing you to new concepts, the musicians, the staff; it opens up the symphonic world in a new and wonderful way.

For more information about joining us, email carleen.ebbs@nzso.co.nz